


Too white ship logs

by lenioia



Series: Too white empire [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/M, Post-season 4;
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lenioia/pseuds/lenioia
Summary: Some things never change. Entrapta is not where she should be, ventilation is everywhere, stuff will get hacked. And lab partners will always find each other.Also, Catra may be sorry, Hordak wasn't that bad as top general, and "but I do" will be actually used.
Relationships: Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra)
Series: Too white empire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664215
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88





	1. Apart

Full memory wipes were more reliable. But that kind of reconditioning was reserved to young clones, with no useful expertise to salvage and many years of life in front of them. A full wipe would have required all the training, even the most basic, like, speaking a language, to be reprogrammed, just like it was done with newly hatched copies. That would be a several weeks long and resource intensive process.

Prime had long experimented with selective wipes and that was now the standard policy for reconditioning any clone older than twenty years, provided the clone contained useful information, otherwise, the policy was disposal. Depending on the defect, either as cannon fodder, worker at high toxicity sites, or through the garbage airlocks.

For little brother, Prime considered his options. This would be his third reconditioning, the first two haven’t fixed him, unlikely a third would do any better. A few years and his little brother would go off the rails, again. Clearly, disposal was the only possible outcome. Long term. 

Short term, though. 

How many years has he been on Etheria? Prime’s plan to access the weapon inside the planet could use some knowledge of it. And for a while, for some years after each of the first two reconditioning, little brother has been a useful general. His inventiveness allowed him to quickly respond to whatever the next invasion would throw at the Horde, his scientific mindset and vast technical knowledge to streamline what followed war: terraforming, resource collection, long term presence.

Prime wanted order, and order required all these things to be carried out perfectly. 

Still they felt lower tasks to Prime, his mind more attuned to finer arts like grand strategies, political schemes, revenges, and of course self-aggrandizing.

Also, little brother would sometimes spot weak points in Prime’s strategies. Not weak, perfectible points. To his credit, little brother wasn’t as much of a coward as the other clones and would speak out to suggest alternatives. Irritating as it may be, even Prime could sometime use suggestions from outside his own echo chamber. 

In the fine art of conquest, annoying things can temporarily be worth enduring. 

Then the Bewen system invasion wasn’t as fast and smooth as Prime would have liked it and when little brother was back, he seemed weaker and more “off” than usual. His eyes red again. It was nothing entirely new, little brother’s eye color varied, but this time they were as red as red can get. Prime kept him under growing pressure, until he collapsed during a military council. Obviously not worth anymore.

Definitely he had thought, but, as luck would have it, he could now be used one last time. A selective wipe would maintain his scientific skills and general knowledge of Etheria and will keep him committed for the time needed to turn the planet into the perfect weapon. Then he’ll contribute his insights on Etheria to the training for the clones destined to scientific work, so they’ll be able to maintain the weapon, long after the garbage airlock would close behind little brother’s unsightly body.

\---

He didn’t fight the reconditioning. The pain and exhaustion the process involved left him with just passing moments of awareness. Already the details were lost to him but ever present and crushing was a feeling of utter failure and loss. Of complete hopelessness, thought he didn’t recall what hope felt like. He still knew what a selective wipe was, knew that was what was happening to him. Knew he deserved it because he was garbage, knew he had failed, failed all around, failed and lost something so important he couldn’t bear to think at it, whatever it was. Knew he wanted to be wiped and know no more. 

The gray and white robe reported VHNT4358 as his serial number. He laboriously dressed, his hands still unable to stop trembling, then was presented with an armature. He didn’t like it as he would look even more different, but they said the work he was going to be assigned to required him to wear it for optimal performance, so he submitted. 

When Prime came, he was still on the floor on his knees. Before handing the Hearth of Etheria project to him, he had to be sure. He lowered a hand on his face, checked his eyes, their pale green cleansed of any trace of red. His mind was wide open to him, devoid of anything different from academic knowledge. The only feeling left was gratitude for having been corrected. 

Prime set a green diamond shaped chip in the collar of his armor, and when it activated, he could stand on his feet again.

\---

Obviously, when the green column appeared, she rushed in to gather data. 

Instead, the column gathered her. She didn’t end up in the throne room as anything picked up while the column was closing was considered accidental and diverted to a quarantine location, where bots would deal with threats or pick up interesting bits. There were ventilation conduits. There always are. 

The spaceship was so big it took Entrapta three days to reach the external shell. Honestly, it would have been way quicker if she hadn’t stopped at least every other minute to check on some fascinating tech along the way. Science was always worth it, anyway. Her interest in a help desk bot lead her to a tray of discarded tech, from where she snatched a tablet, fully functional beside some minor cracks on the screen. There was a password taped to it. There always is. 

“Recording test #1: Horde IT not hardened against social engineering attacks. Owner unlikely to look for the device anytime soon”

Three maintenance droids working on pipes were kidnapped next and then one delivery bot carrying ration bars. Not ideal but they could be cut down to tiny size. 

The maintenance droids were logged on the ticketing system for repair requests and would go wherever instructed by the tickets assigned to them. The delivery bot was logged on the provision requests system and would go, gather and deliver non restricted items to any authorized destination. 

The alien language wasn’t an issue. Hordak used to keep his notes on the portal in his native language. She could recognize only basic words, but she knew the symbols and the writing structure. Plus, when Catra’s minions rushed to get rid of her, they didn’t waste time inspecting her clothes for items. 

So, there she was, with a tablet no one was looking for hooked on the spaceship systems and the dictionary chip Hordak had given her to translate his stuff loaded. She filled a request form to open for checks the safety lock of the pipe section she was in. The system assigned it to the nearest bot which was, unsurprisingly, one in her possession. The bot rolled to the lock and interfaced with the maintenance port which acknowledged its permission to operate it. Two more sections and Entrapta reached the technical gallery where her delivery bot was waiting to fulfill her order for portable storage chips, a bag of tools and the smallest ration bars in the ample kitchen catalogue. 

She usually rushed when close to a discovery, but for once she took some time, before moving to her destination, the other end of the dark gallery. Some light was shining on the metal walls. Warm and nuanced, definitely not the standard clinical white of the ship interior. Two small observation turrets protruded outside. She reached the first, were the most light came from. 

She stared still at the small, thick windows, for an undefined amount of time. Several spaceships in formation were floating in front of a blue sphere so wide she could only see a part of, partially embraced by cloud layers. There were patches, which she slowly recognized as familiar lands. Etheria was before her. 

\---

VHNT4358 knew he had made mistakes, grave ones if he’s been reconditioned, and wanted to repay Prime the best he could for the opportunity to serve again. A new area was being equipped, located on the conic section of the mothership, on the opposite side of the main space yard. The area was still been upgraded from maintenance bay for ships to main lab for the Heart of Etheria project. Usually research facilities aren’t hosted on the precious mothership, but Prime wanted maximum control and secrecy. The best scientists and equipment from the auxiliary ships were already moving in. A meeting was scheduled in two hours, but his mind was still reorganizing around the holes in his memory created by the wipe. A look at the materials gathered in a storage room nearby could be useful to sort himself out enough to answer the many question the meeting would bring. 

His new level 1 badge granted him immediate access. There was all the stuff the Etherian cat had brought to Prime. Her bad, she didn’t seem to have much more to offer. Among First Ones tech parts and project notes, there was a large globe, a reproduction to scale of Etheria. The location of the runestones was marked by lights. 

On the surface, carefully chiseled lines reproduced territories, which he slowly recognized as familiar lands. Salineas, along the coastline. His mind offered a random image of ruins under a sunset. The wide expanse of the Fright Zone. His mind offered another image, ruins of machineries. He shrugged it off. 

\---

The second observation point faced spaceside. 

Entrapta was just four meters away from seeing the stars in their full splendor, for the first time. What could be seen from a planet surface was just a pale reminder of what it looked like from space, Hordak told her. She had dreamed so much about this moment, worked so much to get the portal working, an almost impossible engineering feat. So they would see the stars. A whole minute passed, and she was still four meters away. She had to see those stars alone.

In the end, she did, just like on Beast Island. 

She took a while to fully take in the scene. There were dots, bright dots, so many of them. Uncountable. Hordak had told her and she had tried to imagine, but this was, unimaginable. A band, like an impossibly intricated jewel across the whole field of view, held the most stars, and clouds of varying nuances, which her mind rushed to guess the composition of. Everywhere else, sparser tiny bright dots and slightly larger paler ones were spread. “They may look to you like stars, but they are galaxies. Every single one of those dots you would barely see, that’s billions of stars together. Every dot, one lifetime wouldn’t be enough to just count its stars”. Hordak. Hordak had tried his best to explain, but she couldn’t even begin to comprehend till this very moment. How much Hordak must have missed this and how far she was from understanding him. The universe has been in front of her for just minutes and already the thought of being prevented to ever see it again was painful. For Hordak, born among those stars, the black void of Etheria’s sky must have been unbearable. 

“What’s the rush” she had told him. What’s the rush, when every night for him, was a reminder of the prison he was in. 

Of course, he left.

\---

On his way back to the meeting, VHNT4358 spotted a short dark tunnel leading to an observation window. He found himself looking out before he realized. Uncountable stars. And the galaxy disk, an impossibly intricated jewel across the whole field of view, with its gas clouds of varying nuances. His mind still remembered the composition of each one of them, but the memory of their beauty had been obliterated, so he allowed himself to stare for a moment, the sense of loss inside of him briefly dimmed. Maybe he had found what was missing, he’s just been planet side for too long. 

No. The pain rebound, and a certainty sank in. Whatever it was that he had lost, it wasn’t something that could be found again, replaced or fixed. It was lost, definitively.

He forced his legs back on the path to the meeting and his brain on the engineering issues to be discussed first. The image of ruined machineries, again. He shook his head. What was wiped, better stay wiped. Prime was all that mattered. Prime was all was left.

\---

A week had passed. Entrapta’s enthusiasm was still strong, she had discovered so much she almost couldn’t sleep, which was hard for her to do anyway, since she left the Fright Zone.

“Too white ship log #83: I’m down to one maintenance drone, a second one was just deauthorized and recalled for diagnostic. They may have triggers for unusual activity patterns. But I’m so close to the conic section, I know they have something big there Emy…” She sighted. This cannot do. She’ll steal one of the sentinel drones, there were so many, and install Emily’s software in it. “How hard can it be!” she said, trying to smile at the indifferent maintenance bot. When Hordak had built his laboratory, he had replicated as much as he could what he had back in the original Horde. Same standards, configurations, protocols, code libraries. 

“Too white ship log#84: My data shows Hordak has been away for 43.3 years. Their hardware is so fast, I could run ten point six sanctums off this tablet and record two orders of magnitude more data! But… are they very serious at backward compatibility, or they don’t evolve much? With all this computing power they run… roughly the same stuff they had 43.3 years ago, just faster? Well, this makes it easier for me but is so un-fascinating! I’m sure Hordak will fix this. We had so many ideas for upgrades!”

\---

He had managed the first meeting, the second, every other. Busied himself as much as he could, almost not sleeping at all, which was hard for him to do anyway, since the moment he was falling asleep, the moment he woke up in his pod, too cold for his bones and too white for his tastes, the image of the ruins was there. Each time he had it buried under his many ideas for upgrades to the new laboratory. 

He would work, work and work, work those ruins out of his head. 

Even now, on his way to check a turbine engine, he was so lost in the lab power source redesign that he was completely startled when some bluish screeching stuff hit his shoulder, in the middle of an empty hall. The thing didn’t fall off. The thing perched. VHNT4358 hadn’t time to notice the yellow eyes or the happiness on the thing face, as he instinctively shoved it away harshly enough to send it crashing against the wall. Some alien diplomat’s pet, VHNT4358 supposed, switching to common language before yelling “This will teach you not to bother me anymore”. 

VHNT4358 turned away, hurrying back to his destination and his previous train of thought. Discarding the image of a vitrine before it could get any hold on his consciousness. Prime was reading his mind daily. He had to keep it clean, his mind was Prime’s, to contain only what Prime approved, to build only what Prime desired. Prime had looked pleased the last time he checked. He wasn’t failing him.

Then why, his brain, out of nowhere, had just offered the information he was physiologically able to cry?

\---

“Too white ship log#171: I know I said one but there were two, same model but different accessories, so, for science, I will have twin Emilies! I will upgrade one and record the differences, having a control subject will speed up soooo much development!”

She put all her enthusiasm in her voice, gestured and jiggled, but it didn’t help. Imp stare was blank. She had gotten close to the conic section of the mothership, a guarded section probably. From the mothership plans, downloaded from the nav system of her newly kidnapped grid maintenance bot, she had learned there were just a couple of entry points she could use to get there. She had chosen the smaller. Halfway in, she had found Imp, weak, distressed. 

“This will teach you not to bother me anymore” 

The only recording Imp would play. Every hour or so. 

Her mask down, she busied herself with New Emily and Scorpy. She would work, work and work, work his voice out of her thoughts. Until Imp would play it again. 

He had, really, left them. 

His voice sounded strong; he was probably well, maybe already back at Prime’s side. Happy she hoped, though happy, he didn’t sound. None of the white clones she had spied upon from the vents ever sounded happy.

She examined her maps. She abandoned her thoughts to reach the conic part, where Hordak probably was. Better not having Imp see him again. She needed a new objective. And she needed to design herself a better mask. Her current one didn’t allow her to wipe her tears off without raising it.

\---

More data was needed to ensure the reliability of the power output simulation for the black garnet. His – not – Prime’s team of scientists would possibly be able to help him gather data, but they would need time and access to the actual garnet to refine the models. This would involve several people and a trip to Etheria, still a warzone where rebels would lay ambushes, when such a sensitive issue in the weapon project was better solved discreetly. Maybe there was a faster way to cross check his assumptions. 

The things he presently knew about the garnet, all technical information, were likely things he had learned by running tests on the stone in his wiped past. His old notes and data were still in the storage room. He was sure he won’t like to look at it again, but if this could advance Prime’s weapon, so be it.

He couldn’t remember writing the notes but recognized the angular rough handwriting as his own. He frowned at the number of corrections, angry scribbles, torn pages. Holes that looked like the notepad had been stabbed with a crosshead screwdriver. Repeatedly. Nothing on the garnet, everything on how much of a failure he was. Probably, he was better asking to be reconditioned monthly. He just threw away the block and looked at the rest of the pathetic pile of distressed notepads. Were bonfires still forbidden on the ship?

A bundle was in a slightly better shape. Enough to tempt him to take it. His angular writing, just less messy, and finally, some useful equations on the garnet. Some more corrections and.

Somebody else’s handwriting. 

In purple. 

More in the following pages, and the next notebook. Someone skilled, clearly, but someone who used common language. His own writing had partially switched to it, like he expected the purple… assistant? to read his notes. And write purple corrections over his results, judging by the crumbles, while eating. And survive doing so since there was even more purple in the following pages.

What the four-dimensional space

had made him so utterly fool as to share such classified information with a non-clone? With an Etherian? Their enemies could have crucial insights useful to sabotage the weapon, right out of his own notes?

He was better to find out more about this Etherian “assistant” and make sure they couldn’t do damage, before he was due for the next mind check. At least when Prime would read the news out of his mind, he’ll be able to show some countermeasures. 

But where?

His mind offered an image of ventilation conduits.

And he realized. All these images must be senseless reconditioning byproducts, not surviving hints from his old self. There were no ruins, his lacrimal glands were too atrophic for tears, and whoever scribbled over his equations wasn’t possibly coming from an air duct. And Prime was going to authorize a bonfire, after all, to properly wipe him this time. 

\---

Imp randomly playing Hordak’s voice had proved dangerous. The sudden noise had made a clone try to open a manhole to inspect the source. They moved away fast enough, but that has been too close. Time for countermeasures. 

“Too white ship log#212: we’ve entered the section with ticker walls and barriers the map showed. Sounds should be less of a concern here though security seems tighter, which is good since I was planning to get some additional weapon parts for the twins. This sector has armor and ammunition caches and their sentry bots le-vi-ta-te! I need to kidnap more data! But first, better finish my sound monitoring system”

Entrapta was reading a new driver for the acoustic sensor array of the twin bots, so they would check any voice in their surroundings and alert should they be within hearing range from a clone. If she could figure out what that function call was. One of Hordak’s code sections. His memory was better than hers and he was used to work alone. He never bothered to document what parameter did what or tell her when he made changes to her code. She would just notice something running faster than the previous day. She would wait for him to be nearby, then tell her recorder about the improvement, so she could catch that brief little upward tilt the corner of his mouth would do. 

Would anyone care now, if he smiled? She still did. She was better to find out more about her lab partner and make sure he was happy, before she was due to abandon Prime’s ship. 

New Emily purred a string of beeps. “Too white ship log#213: these readings aren’t clone voices”


	2. Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We almost killed each other back when we fought, and he didn’t even blink an eye when he saw me again"

“Are you asking me to betray my own people?” shouted Glimmer, her words echoing in the metal prison walls “What kind of Queen do you think I am?”

“A dead one if you don’t answer him. He’s going to find out how your runestone works anyway, ripping it out of your own mind” replied Catra. She was tired of explanations. Maybe a threat would work better “Would you really like him to look inside you, see all the ways he can blackmail you? Find out what Bow means to you, so he’ll decide to capture him to…” 

“Stop it! I don’t even know who you are working for now!”

“He’s no Hordak” went on Catra “There’s no one Prime cares enough for me to use against him. I’m just trying to survive until there’s a chance to escape” 

“We’ll never get a chance…” started Glimmer, but she was cut short by the crash of their purple chance landing on the floor. 

“Heello! Uh, these backdoors open so fast and they are so slippery. Of course, their levitating maintenance bots have no need for grip” Entrapta’s mask went down as she turned to Catra “What are you doing here, anyway. Weren’t you going to win”

“How you got here!” cut short Catra. Just gimme an escape route already.

“Not with your help”. Glitter noticed she was looking at both of them. Adora may have told her she hadn’t agreed to her rescue.

“You cannot expect us to prioritize saving you each time your Horde ‘friends’ abandon you, you understand this? And about your choices, that shining new lab your former pal got from Prime to work on the Hearth of Etheria, how are you not there, building stuff to wipe us all as usual?”

“Ok, cool down your sparkles now” interrupted Catra “We have enough to scream at each other for a week, but we DON’T HAVE A WEEK! You, focus! Do you know how we can get away?” 

“I know how I can get away”

Catra stiffened. There must be something to convince her. Not having tasered her would have been optimal - on so many levels - anyway, judging by how her hair had lowered, the former pal thing must have hit home hard enough. “You were not in Prime’s throne room… Help us and I’m telling you what we know about Hordak and Prime”

“He gave him a lab, you already said that. He is fine then and Prime has welcomed him back. He didn’t need me anyway with the portal finished”

“That’s not it. He thought you left” Catra noticed Glimmer’s eyes rolling “Well I may have suggested you possibly deserted to Bright Moon”

“You’re lying”

“What?” Catra’s ears went down in disbelief. How can she possibly be this inept at cues, she believed without a blink every single lie thrown at her, when for once she’s told the truth… “I told him you betrayed us, so he won’t seek you back!”

“I had time on Beast Island to better analyze my data on you Catra, to understand why I failed to predict you hitting me. My improved reports show you lie 73% of the time, up to 96% of the time when you’re trying to obtain something. That means there’s some 4% chance you’re sincere. Still a fair chance by scientific standards but I’m going with the 96% unless you have additional data that shows otherwise”

Catra’s fur raised. 

“Here is your additional data!” she shouted, pulling out something from her jacket and shoving it in front of Entrapta. Her mask went up immediately, her eyes wide on the pink crystal. 

“I ripped it from his chest, to stop him from killing me when he found out what I did to you! He had zero problems throwing his second in command away in the Waste, but you… wasn’t for Prime’s arrival, he would have dropped the war, the Horde, everything and just burned down the whole Beast Island to find whatever remains were left of you!”

“Weren’t we to… cool down” suggested Glimmer. Entrapta looked so shattered it seemed unlikely she could be of any help now.

Catra composed herself again. Right. Better keep the rest of the story for later. “Here’s the deal. Be back with an escape plan for the three of us and you get your crystal back”

Entrapta remained perfectly still for several seconds. Then before they could even register her tendrils move, their chance disappeared in the wall along with the crystal, leaving Catra with nothing but empty hands.

\---

Prime laughed to his face, his fingers digging in his skin. He could feel him laugh inside his own brain too, like the few things left looked so miserable to him. 

“Of course, I already knew all of that. Not that additional security is bad, I just wonder to be honest why you had conceived unperfect security to begin with. Are you truly doing your best, or are you already too weak to perform adequately?”

He felt him sifting again inside his thoughts until they all laid bare to him. How he suffered in the cold pod. The image of the ruins. “Were you hoping to remember something, little brother? Ruins, no less. How fitting. Is your opinion - for you always have ‘opinions’, haven’t you, you just cannot stay away from your defects - there could be anything worth salvaging of your failures?” 

Prime shoved him on the floor, hard enough to hurt. Would be amusing to read how much in his mind tomorrow.

“The Etherian assistant, your former cat fixed that for you long ago. You should have been thankful”

\---

“Adora!”

Bow showed her the messages flooding his tablet “Looks like first ones, can you read them?”

Adora’s face brightened for the first time in weeks. “Time for best friends squad to the rescue! Ready your tools, master builder Bow, someone sent you homework!” 

\---

As she popped in the prison again, the first thing she noticed was the number of deep claw scratches along the previous backdoor she had used. 

“Didn’t you notice the wall blocks are all the same? They are all backdoors, except, only one can be accessed at any one time, they are synchronized with the prison bots, the one I now control included. I named it Sparkly”

Entrapta disappearance, Catra meltdown against the wall and twenty hours of sleepless wait for whatever Prime planned for them had left Glimmer into that stage of exhaustion where you just couldn’t care anymore. “GLIMMY!” she snapped. 

Catra hissed maniacally “She said SPARKLY so I WIN!”

They just leaned against each other on the floor, laughing wildly among “Glitty!” “She-tty!” “Glitra!” shouts.

“You… still want to talk?”

“Oh YES and we would offer Anything to bribe you to get us out Princess” bowed Catra “Except, we don’t have a single thing left and you are so right to leave us here and Scorpia was so right… we are SO BAD friends even Lord Hordak looked like an improvement... and I managed to screw up that too for you didn’t I”

“I’m not leaving you here, where you got the idea?”

“You said your plan was just for you!”

“Well obviously it was just for me in that moment, I didn’t know you were there, I had no reason to plan for three before finding you”

“ ”

“I have upgraded my plan since. I kidnapped more stuff to accommodate you two so now we have to hurry, they’ll find out soon enough. This tablet holds the maps of the ship. 32 minutes from now this backdoor will be the one to open for the next inspection. Sparkly will lead you out of this area. Then follow the instruction on the screen, the passages have seven types of sensors which…” She briefly stopped, recalling Catra wanted her to keep it simple “Well, the less stuff you break the more time you’ll have before they raise an alarm. A hacked sentry bot will help you reach a secondary spaceship hangar on this side. Bow and Adora should be there with Mara’s ship. I sent Bow some masquerading patterns to confuse the mothership sensors when they approach, but they will eventually notice. Be as fast as you can. My data shows the first ones’ ship is invisible to their radars, go away fast enough and they won’t be able to track you”

Catra had managed to collect herself again from the floor “Wait, what? Follow the instructions? Aren’t you coming? Where are you… You tell me you aren’t going to look for Hordak!” 

“He needs the crystal” her mask went down “I need to check on him. If I’m not back in time, you leave”

Entrapta motioned but this time Catra was fast enough to catch one of her tendrils. “Wait! We didn’t… tell you everything! It is… Hordak, it is too late”

“What? You said…”

“I’ll never get how you two ‘geniuses’ can be so clueless… to think Prime could be pleased with half of a planet and half of a portal? Prime has a… procedure for clones that underperform. He recycles their bodies and abilities but everything else… is deleted. Gone. Hordak… died. Right after Prime got his hands on him. I saw what is left, all white with green eyes. We almost killed each other back when we fought, and he didn’t even blink an eye when he saw me again. Prime had to make... presentations. Whoever is running that lab now, has nothing to do with Hordak. Like those bots you hack. He’s just old hardware running a new program. Prime’s”

“You come with us. You’ll get yourself killed for nothing”

“HE ISN’T NOTHING!”

“It is not just about you! Prime can read minds!” added Glimmer “You’ll get caught and he’ll reap out of your mind everything you know about first ones’ tech and runestones, to complete the weapon and use it against other planets! Haven’t you noticed there are consequences for your choices? There is no point, this new Hordak couldn’t care less about you” 

“But I do”

Entrapta raised to a block in the wall, opening it with her tendrils. “I understand the possible outcomes and their probability distributions. But he’s my lab partner” and he’s loved “and I’m burning this place down until I get back whatever is left of him”

As the block was closing behind her, she heard Catra’s voice calling from below “Entrapta! I am… sorry”.

“Why did you let her go!” shouted Glimmer.

“Do you even hear yourself” smirked Catra “Isn’t it even worst if Prime gets Adora, the key to the Heart of Etheria? But you are ok with the risk of her coming here, if it’s to rescue… you. So spare me your ‘ethics’, Queen”

\---

Glitch. Warning on, warning off. Glitch. Reset.

VHNT4358 was starting to lose his patience already. Was it even possible to do science in this mess? 

Delivery and maintenance hubs flooded by requests, services denied. Partial loss of power just outside the lab. It started to smell like something bigger than bad luck. VHNT4358 moved to the conic sector surveillance post, which was a mess too. There were more disfunctions than those he already knew of, only secondary systems were involved, but it wasn’t under control yet. His hears twitched around parsing the hurried conversations, trying to get the bigger picture. “Grid maintenance bot stuck shortcut some cables” “Request to reply all with a request to reply all sent to the delivery bots distribution list” that was good but then it got better “Maintenance bots that got tickets to check each other and are presently chasing each other to comply were marked by the sentries for unusual activities pattern checks so more requests for maintenance bots to check maintenance bots are being queued”. It briefly occurred to VHNT4358 their big lungs may have evolved to survive this kind of reporting, but then someone in a corner reading “Sub-quadrant 34 warning K4358, sub-quadrant 35 now” got his attention. One of his new security measures.

“Where” he shouted.

“Main quadrant 3H ventilation manifold area” the clone reported.

Someone skilled. In the ventilation conduits.  
The image of the ruins popped back like a confirmation. He seized a tablet away from the closest clone and logged himself. A notification for sub-quadrant 47 warning K4358 flashed. Coming closer to the lab area. He summoned an armed patrol and stormed out.

\---

With the twins armed and armored, plus an additional bot, big enough to contain Imp inside a bay and tow a body if need be, Entrapta unleashed all the malicious routines she had managed to write. Primary systems were out of her reach but even some lower level chaos in the conic section could help. She had plenty of stun weapons. If Catra was right, Hordak wasn’t going to cooperate. 

She was short of time, so she just run along her chosen path, her bots set to follow the signal from her smallest tablet. 

The newest alarms went on without her knowing. Her former lab partner had been smart enough to leave them out of the maintenance maps. Along with the new barriers that snapped between her and her bots at the next joint. Before she could react, something ripped the whole conduit out of the ceiling. She had barely time enough to knot her small tablet in her hair, then the hard floor and the thought that Glimmer was right both hit. Consequences.

She was abruptly gathered and pressed against the wall. She looked up.

A charged taser at her throat was the only reason she had to stop, instead of just throwing her arms around the waist of the clone wielding it. The brightest smile, she couldn’t stop. It’s been weeks, and the minutes between Catra saying “Hordak died” and this very moment, have been years.

All in white, he was, but he still had the armor. A green chip was in the collar socket, at least partially powering it, he looked healthy enough. His hair was white, folded back like it was the first time she sneaked in his previous lab. His face seemed thinner without the usual deep black around his eyes, green, but as shining as they used to be when he was enraged, and clearly, he was upset enough by her intrusion and her smile. She just laughed of joy at how familiarly angry and baffled he looked. There was way more Hordak left than she had prepared herself to find. 

“You remember me” he hissed “You were my assistant on Etheria, isn’t it?”

For a second, she hoped.

“Your lab partner!”

The taser lowered to her chest and activated.

“Take her to room 3H8. Horde Prime is coming to see her” she managed to hear him order, before passing out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hordak's serial VHNT stands for Very Hot Naked Thighs


	3. Scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this counts as rescue, after all.

The small purple and pink creature laid motionless on the white floor of the empty room they were in. Guards were just outside two closed doors on opposite sides. Prime mostly liked to toy with prey alone, but he has been invited. As a reward or as prey himself, VHNT4358 couldn’t be sure. He hoped the former. After all, he had the saboteur trapped while his brothers were still trying to understand what hit them. 

His small former assistant gasped.

“Welcome on my ship, Etherian” greeted Prime “let me help you up”

His politeness ended immediately. One of his hands harshly grabbed her by her air, raising her until she was level with Prime’s face. Her eyes scanned the room and stopped on VHNT4358. 

“Ho...”

The moment she tried to open her mouth, Prime slammed his other hand tightly around her neck, preventing her. She could barely breath.

“Don’t bother, little vandal rat. I’ll take care myself of getting out of your mind what’s useful to me. Be informed mind reading out of lower races can be damaging to specimens who try to resist. But if you prefer to suffer, I’m really not opposed to it”

She wasn’t even listening. Her eyes were on VHNT4358’s eyes, seeking. Prime wasn’t used to be background noise and tightened his grip further, but then suddenly relaxed with a smirk.

“Disappointment?” mocked Prime, looking at him, and then at her again “I can relate. My little brother always manages to betray expectations, no matter how small. You should know by now” Prime’s voice hardened “He couldn’t even find the way home on his own, he needed a rat to help him out of his misery” 

Prey. Prime’s hand moved suddenly from her neck to his chest. A jolt erupted from his metal finger, thrusting him against the wall. He took a while to get on his feet again, at Prime’s side again.

Under the gaze of her magenta eyes again.   
What was she expecting from him? What Prime meant saying he had needed her help? Why was she looking at him with… worry? Not for herself, for him. Like she knew… he could have broken under that hit. 

Prime’s hand was back on her. He laid his fingers on her cheek.

He saw her stiffen as Prime began, but her eyes stood on him. Why?  
Why did she smile when he had captured her?   
He still knew what a smile was but since his recondition no one has smiled at him. Not even a smirk, certainly not that smile she had given him… like she was... happy? To see him again?

Prime’s face got harsher, her ignoring him clearly irking his ego.   
Her eyes turned paler but remained anchored on his own eyes. Unwavering.  
She was going to die, then why the only thing she seemed to care for was… him?   
Why did he felt like he was...

He needed to understand.   
There had to be some answers left in his mind, even after his reconditioning.   
He needed to remember.   
He wanted to remember. Her.   
Of his past, there were seemingly just notions left, but he struggled no matter to seek for something, for anything that could give him a clue, a reason, before it was too late.  
Her pupils widened and her eyes became duller, grayer. He knew of something similar and his brain, finally, recalled a trace. The memory of a page on an Etheria Atlas - academic knowledge, what’s he’s been left with - about how local legends described what happens to the eyes of the victims of Beast Island’s voices. It was like that, it was…

It was like seeing her die on Beast Island.

The image of the ruins exploded to envelop him, the scar of a moment that burned so much even a reconditioning couldn’t erase. Ruins, of broken pieces of equipment in. His sanctum. Broken by his raging fury.   
Entrapta.   
The warmth of her presence. Gone. The guilt, his utter mistake, trusting Catra instead of her.   
It’s been weeks since the portal. Entrapta had died on Beast Island, certainly. He had lost her, forever.   
Waiting among the ruins for Catra to arrive, the only thing in his mind, painfully detailed visions of Entrapta dying on Beast Island. Was it sudden? Did she lay hurt, suffering for hours, expecting him to seek her, rescue her? Realizing he had failed her, before letting go and dying?

Entrapta was alive.

Hordak’s eyes reopened, slits of red, just as Entrapta’s faded away.

Prime’s hand was still on her cheek. Every detail of the suffering his probing entailed, known to Hordak. To himself, the defect, the abomination, he could accept, lay the blame on himself. To her. None of his lies could make him accept that be done to her.   
There was a contraction in Prime’s tentacles. Hordak could see a smile arise on his face, of pleasure, savoring the pain he was about to inflict her. Could see the monster his brother was so clearly, that rage filled him completely, burning away everything else. He caught Prime’s tentacles in his claws the second they moved out of their caps, pulling his brother’s head back to him so violently Prime lost his hold on Entrapta. 

“You. Don’t get. To hurt her” he hissed, a hatred so deep seeping from his voice Prime was startled. He struggled to turn, to find his eyes burning red. He was completely out of his control. By the time Prime realized the danger, it was too late. His little brother’s fury had made him strong and fast enough to force his tentacles back against him, thrusting their stings deep in Prime’s neck, crushing them to squeeze in his veins their whole contents. 

Hordak knew from his firsthand experience in the throne room that the pain surge would be instantaneous. He had just one or two seconds left, before Prime’s emergency force shield would deploy. He grabbed the remaining tentacles and tore them out of their caps, stretching them outwards. The force shield cut right through them as it engaged and lit, wasting their precious contents on the floor. He knew the strength of that force shield - long ago he had been the one to craft the first version of it, to protect that very monster he had loved so much. Prime was now impossible for him to kill. But with his antidote shots cut away, at least he will suffer.

A sudden noise was behind him, the first two guards rushing in. He used both their absolute surprise and his rage to charge and smash the first on the floor, taking his weapon in the process. He hit both and managed to get a second stun rod in his other hand before facing five other clones. Two didn’t engage and just rushed to gather Prime, unconscious on the floor, cocooned inside his force shield.   
Let them, he had other priorities now.   
He charged again, taking out another clone, being hit in exchange. The green chip in his collar sparkled, overheating to deliver enough energy to keep up with his fury. He was overexerting himself, dismissing damage and pain, knowing he didn’t have any other plan. He managed to get rid of the second clone, but the third was on him. They locked, pushing each other, the other clone stronger. He suddenly threw himself off balance to disengage, letting the clone an opening in exchange for a chance to hit. And he hit, hard, but at the same time the clone discharged his rod close to his collar. The green chip cracked and went dark. They both fell on the floor. The clone stood still. 

Hordak tried to get up, really tried, desperate to check on Entrapta. But it was like the whole galaxy weighted on him. Aching and shaking, his legs not even moving an inch. He had disabled 5 clones out of the about 50.000 on the mothership and his body was already so done with it. 

Seriously, what did he expect to be able to do? How many more times he had to be beaten up to understand a crumbling failure like himself shouldn’t even try to raise his head? Did he really think he could fix the damage he had done, opening that portal, calling his brother? Entrapta had asked him to delay, his pride had thought better to yell at her to get the portal work. No need for Catra. He had killed Entrapta himself in that very moment. Everything has been his fault. Every horrible thing that will now happen to them, after his pathetic mutiny, will be his fault.

Voices and noises. Seven clones rushed in, he couldn’t see the back door, but it sounded like bots were coming in too. The clones slowed down, seeing no resistance. They cautiously approached him. 

And then suddenly were up in the air, shoved away by a blast. He managed to turn his head enough to look behind him. Entrapta was standing, a grin of satisfaction on her face and a small tablet in her tendrils. At her side twin bots were methodically firing stun grenades and electric shots at every clone and sentry approaching.

She had hacked Prime’s sentries. Of course, she had, he said to himself smiling. She had probably a whole plan. He wouldn’t leave that floor, but she would escape, be fine. The little he had managed to do has given his lab partner time enough to let her bots arrive. Maybe this could count as rescue, after all?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was to cut this at three paragraphs less, but I'm not villainous enough


	4. Reentry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven minutes to the explosion. He suddenly realized, then what?  
> \+ Imp ships them

“Hordak!” The very way she said it, that was his name. With her twin bots covering the entries, Entrapta rushed at his side. Her mask went down as she kneeled, her hands and tendrils hurrying to work on the collar of his armor, removing the burnt fragments of the green chip, repositioning the cables. 

She was so close, he could manage to lift his arm, enough to let his clawed fingertips rest on her cheek, behind the mask. Like he could erase the pain of Prime’s hand from it. He allowed himself a few seconds, then it was time to let go.

“Entrapta. Run. You cannot carry me, there is no time, reinforcements will be here soon”

Her mask went immediately up.

“I’m NOT leaving you!” she scolded him “I wouldn’t, ever”

Her eyes had already disappeared behind her mask and he didn’t dare anything else. Something shone between her tendrils, and when it surfaced, he recognized his - her - their crystal. 

“Catra is sorry”

How Catra always managed to beat him? She’s already made amends to Entrapta - while he had just told her he still believed she could abandon him. Double Trouble’s voice trolled him in his restored memory. “Great work, all around”

His self-loathing was cut short by the jolt of the crystal powering on. The weight lifted and the pain somewhat subsided. Entrapta’s hair wrapped around his shoulders and helped him standing. He gathered a weapon and followed her on the back door. A bigger bot was approaching fast, but her smile was enough confirmation it was one of hers. The big bot made short work of the corridor wall with a plasma ray, letting them into a gallery. 

“We are going to the secondary space dock” she informed “new shortcuts may confuse tracker bots”  
Tactical conversation. He could handle that. “Did you hack a ship? Which model? Radars?”  
“The first ones’ ship! No radar should see that. We’ll have SOO much to learn from that ship! Later I suppose”  
Them in a lab, happy and safe, with no other concern than their experiments. He had that. And throw it away. He swallowed. No time for remorse in the middle of a battle.   
“You got it back?”  
“I didn’t. Yet. The ship answers to Adora only. She used it to seek me on Beast Island. But we were… late. Couldn’t stop Glimmer. I barely reached the Fright Zone in time for boarding Prime’s ship. Adora wants Glimmer back, I contacted her to come and rescue her”

So Adora saved Entrapta even though she had, for real, betrayed them? And yet, first thing out of that cursed island, Entrapta was coming back to him, to the failure that had put her life at risk, believed her a traitor, almost entertained the thought of killing her himself on the field… Focus, he had to focus on the problems at hand, or the guilt would shatter him. Think. It was likely Entrapta hadn’t told Adora she’ll have a plus one. A backup plan, that’s what he should be thinking at.

A barrage landed around them, the bigger bot sprang to shield them, no matter, Entrapta found her lab partner instantly kneeled between her and the attackers, to shield her too. The twins fought back, but they were pushed against a closed barrier. They could find themselves outnumbered soon. Entrapta diverted the bigger bot to fire against the barrier, just to realize how heavily reinforced it was. Her bot would take ages to make a dent in it… But then the barrier simply raised, with a confirming beep. Hordak had managed to reach the panel and had badged.

“You are still authorized?”

“Yes. As his Hearth of Etheria Project Commanding Officer, Prime got me a Level 1 badge” an evil grin appeared on his face “and Prime’s approval is required to revoke it. He’ll love that notification when he’ll manage to wake up”

Even in the middle of a fight such an oversight in security was worth documenting.   
“Too white ship log#249: Security policy in Prime’s Horde has a single point of failure and this is…”   
“Pathetic” concluded Hordak “and so worth exploiting... we’ll make a stop at the first terminal. I’ve got plans for his lab”

\---

KOM98234 was on duty at the security turret over Barrier #P23, on the conic section of the mothership. A top-ranking diplomat and civilizations engineer, he was mostly serving the Horde far from the mothership, here and there in the galaxy, aligning their latest conquests to their newly assigned purposes. When he was back to report, he was often attached to security as consultant, to improve policies. His long experience allowed him to understand how each race serving under Prime could behave, how to control them and spot anomalies before damage was done. 

His rank got him immediately notified of what was happening. An attack to Prime was something absolutely unheard of. As unheard of was that such damaging news was circulating like wildfire. But, most of those having the honor to serve on the mothership were older experienced upper rank clones, like him. The fact was, almost every one of them remembered VHNT4358 from the time he’s been Prime’s second in command. KOM98234 had reported to him for years. VHNT4358 was, well, remarkable. Unique. No doubt every single clone he was facing down in the corridors had recognized him instantly. 

So short of wiping the whole mothership crew, there was little Prime could do to erase what happened and who did it. This was unprecedented and damning. 

The ship was usually well monitored, but something was presently malfunctioning so badly that most monitors were plain green. KOM98234 saw his former general running toward Barrier #P23 only when he was close enough to enter the field of view of the security tower he was in. He was preceded by two bots and followed by another. Some pink alien was running with him. The bots appeared to be hacked and were attacking the ship forces, opening the road for the fugitives. VHNT4358 badged to open the barrier while a barrage landed on the turret, cracking, but not breaking, the reinforced windows. The three hacked bots were heavily armed but stood no chance against Barrier #P23. KOM98234 simply had to press a few buttons. Being Level 1 himself, he could override his former general’s command to open and trap them. With all the forces chasing them, they’ll soon be dealt with.   
KOM98234 watched himself press the closing sequence too slowly. Barrier #P23 opened and then closed right behind them, effectively blocking out the forces hunting them until the barrier could be raised again, way too late. His former general was already in the hangar sector.

KOM98234 had to stop and analyze what happened, the magnitude of his error sinking in. He had time enough to catch him. He didn’t. He didn’t fail to stop him, that wasn’t it. He, for a split second, before rationality kicked in, hadn’t want. 

Horde Prime was going to kill him for this. Unless…

\---

The lights went off, only sparse emergency beacons left in their area. With Entrapta’s tablet hooked on the terminal, Hordak was making good evil use of his authorizations. Rerouting power and disabling the lab safety switches, given the energy needs of the Hearth of Etheria Project, were among them. Soon most of the conic section was cut off the grid, while the power to the main datacenters surged enough to either fry or make routers and servers disconnect. Bots would still be powered by their own batteries, but with the mainframes and the network gone, their coordination and collective behavior would be limited. While Entrapta downloaded as much as she could from the lab databases, he made one final tweak and all the mothership power turbines went to full power, their energy sent to charge the lab enormous power accumulators. Without any safety and warning active, they will be left to overcharge until their core would fuse and explode.   
“When they blow, the lab will be destroyed, it’ll take them weeks just to restart the project elsewhere. Plus, it’s against the outer shell, it’ll be enough to pierce it. Beside the damage from depressurization, the kick from the explosion will make the mothership spin randomly, they won’t be able to launch fighters for a few minutes, and there’ll be plenty of debris hurling away in every direction. Sensors will have so many trajectories to trace, they won’t be able to determine which one is a ship. We have twelve minutes to be on that ship”

Hordak was to disconnect from the terminal but thinking at the lab reminded him of the other scientists working there. He clenched his fists, torn. Then he set a trigger for the emergency evacuation alarm to ten minutes. Enough time to save his brothers – could he still call them “brothers”? - from burning alive, hopefully, not enough time to let them figure out how to prevent the blow. He said nothing to Entrapta. He was betraying his brothers, he was betraying her too, lowering their escape chances to care for what were now enemies… Wasn’t Prime right? _You always manage to betray expectations_. 

Entrapta thrilled voice pulled him out of his dark place. As always.   
“Isn’t amazing how our bot software performs on the mothership sentries hardware? The load balancer is working so well it’s fully using the additional computing power, they can run through longer scenarios in milliseconds, their reaction time is like, a tenth of what we had, their hit rate is up to almost 98%!”   
It was good, in fact, enough that their three bots were mostly undamaged while the corridor was full of broken sentries and stunned passed out clones. 

A final hall and then they reached their destination, close to the rendezvous point with the princesses.  
Covering approximately a third of the conic section, the secondary space hangar was a huge space. On a curved balcony on their side were a series of docking platforms, below them, several other balconies stood, going down hundreds of meters, many equipped with cranes. The primary hangar, in the main part of the mothership, was for passengers, while this one was used for cargo and military vessels.   
It should have been a mighty sight, the perfect ordered power of the Horde logistic, wasn’t for the mess unfolding on the balcony, right in front of them.   
“Why haven’t they followed the instructions!” cried out Entrapta.  
“Who, Catra?” sighted Hordak.  
It looked like they did break stuff. Plenty. Entrapta could spot the hit of spells, Glimmer must have managed to recharge her powers, and of weapons. Catra, behind her, was jumping around blasting enemies with something likely stolen from the clones. The First Ones’ ship was docked nearby, with Bow on top of it picking targets to hit with his arrows. Adora was on the balcony, fighting to reach Catra. Beside the chaos, things weren’t going exactly well for them. As they approached Catra had to fall back and ended up further separated from the group.  
Entrapta’s twins quickly rebalanced the battle, taking by surprise the clones circling them, not expecting to be attacked by their own bots. The situation was getting better.   
Until Glimmer spot them. She had tears in her eyes and wasn’t alone. The spells weren’t hers.

“You” Micah almost froze, Hordak’s red eyes giving away his identity even after so many years, even among all those copies. The same red eyes Beast Island voices had repeated, every day of his exhausting time there, were tormenting his wife and their child while he could do nothing. And now, his nemesis was here, in the flesh, coming toward his daughter like a materialized nightmare, just mere seconds after he had first reached her. 

Hordak’s armor barely absorbed his first panicked spell. Micah struggled to recall a second heavier hit, seeing Entrapta jump right in front of his enemy. In the mess of the battle, they couldn’t hear what Glimmer was saying to him, but Micah’s face didn’t soften.  
“Entrapta” he fought himself to say “I wouldn’t be with my Glimmer wasn’t for your escape plan. I’ll allow you to board our ship. Pledge alliance to us from now on and you won’t be prosecuted”   
“Just me” noted Entrapta, moving a step back, close to Hordak.  
“I’m already doing you a favor” Micah replied, struggling to maintain composure “a very costly one, not hitting him right away”  
Glimmer took his father’s hand, but Entrapta was faster, her hair coiling tightly around the waist and the left arm of her lab partner. Glimmer shook her head. She could use his father’s magic to teleport, but no way she could pick Entrapta only, not now that they were tied to each other. Entrapta had made her choice.  
Adora was back, breathless. “We need to hurry! Catra is cornered on the next dock, we need to reach her or she’s…” she stopped mid-sentence as soon as she realized the situation. No way she had time to save both Catra and Entrapta. Her hearth knew what she wanted, but her mind struggled to admit the defeat. To break their promise and leave Entrapta behind, to a far worst destiny. So she just stood there, unable to move on.

Hordak was used to shelve emotions and think fast during battles. Entrapta won’t leave him - she’s been clear enough on this point earlier – and the current stalemate could only end with the lot of them dying. His backup plan was risky, yes, but actually… not as much as trying to get away from the Horde mothership on what to his expert eyes looked like an advanced, but plain vanilla, civilian ship, and to top it, then surrender himself to King Micah.  
“We go and steal a better ship for us”  
Entrapta nodded. Her bots made a final swipe of the area to give Glimmer’s group some advantage, then she turned away from the other princesses and from Bow’s voice, still calling her. Her bots swept everything in front of them. Just eight minutes to the explosion.

Hordak led the way, to the far end of the balcony, where he badged to a wide sliding door, stunned a pair of clones before they could even react, then another one on top of a flight of stairs, too fast to recognize him. He smiled at the sight of the hangar opening before them. Dozens of ships were neatly arranged in slots on the walls and rows in the middle, ready to be launched. There was no one in the side hangar, as he had hoped. It contained specialty ships only, mostly for technical uses, like external vessel maintenance, communication relays, automated deliveries... He activated the main terminal and a database of available models popped open. He typed in a string of numbers and codes in his native language and a grin of satisfaction was soon on his face as he scrolled through the results. The Horde military brass had never wanted them in their hangars so… his favorites babies were still stored among the utility ships. He tapped on the display and set up a few options. Something moved in a slot on the far side of the hangar. A robotic crane lifted a pitch-black ship from her slot and a platform brought her to the docking area close to the terminal. Another platform brought two external tanks and two bots started fastening them on her short thick wings. 

How many years since he had last flown in outer space? Among the stars. The clone he was this morning had seen them, but this would be the first time he’ll look at them again as… himself. But first, he’ll need to bring the two of them outside, safely. 

“Your bots, they won’t fit in the ship”  
“Not to worry. I’ve made the processor cores removable, we won’t leave our code behind and we’ll have these powerful chips with us to rebuild them a body! And… well, you’ll see”

Entrapta switched off the twins first, then the bigger bot. As soon as she pulled the bay open, Hordak tried to fetch the bag of memory cards and electronic components, but suddenly, small fangs mercilessly bit his hand.

“This will teach you not to bother me anymore” snapped Imp.

“I told him you weren’t yourself” explained Entrapta, taking Imp out of the bay and cradling him in her hair “but he’ll probably be huffy with you for a while…”  
Hordak suddenly remembered throwing him away and his heart sank. Imp, his only friend for years, who had kept watch over him when he slept, when his old armor broke or he was in too much pain to leave his quarters…  
“When my portal opens, I shall bring forth my brother’s armies” went on Imp, still not done with him.  
Hordak’s ears lowered. His little spy was right. He had called his brother without caring what would follow, what would be of Imp and Entrapta. He didn’t know what to say, and there wasn’t time for words anyway. Seven minutes to the explosion. He suddenly realized, then what?  
“I don’t even know where to go if we manage to escape” he could only admit in a low, almost defeated voice “Every safe place I knew, Prime knows it from my mind”  
“This will only make our decision simpler” replied Entrapta “There’s exactly one place you haven’t been, but I have, and is not under Bright Moon. Beast Island!”  
Hordak barely stopped his arm before it moved too far, his first instinct at the name to hold Entrapta to him and shield her from that horrible place. The vision of her dead corpse still lingered.  
“I’m not having you suffer that again!”  
“You just lack data on it! I had a small base there, equipment, a robot, I know where to get food, shelter and, most importantly, information!” she listed, almost delighted to go back there and finish her research. The only thing she had missed, this time will be with her.

A beep notified them that the ship was ready and refueled. No time for further planning. He had to concede. “Hold Imp tightly, it may not be a smooth ride”

Entrapta let out a deep sight of marvel at the sheer amount of equipment in the ship interior. Hordak took the pilot seat. How rusty he was? Luckily, at first glance there haven’t been radical changes from the model he had last flown. Prime’s hostility toward that specific ship project had probably stalled it after he was gone. _Well, Brother, your continued lack of appreciation for my work… is very much appreciated right now._  
His hands instinctively reached out to the right places. Auxiliary power, mainframe, online. Main power and engine warm up. Lift off. Just a few inches over the platform, enough for the restraints to automatically fold back. Enough for him to remember the feel. He had been a skilled pilot.   
“This is a saboteur ship, fighter class vessel for stealth operations. Sturdy, long range, plenty of… tricks that I suggest you don’t try out now” he added, spotting tendrils sprouting out from the back seat.   
She chuckled, and he felt better. This cannot get worse than Banist43, he said to himself, remembering one of his hardest flights. He scrolled through the settings and… forty years after he was discarded, he found his presets were still the default.   
His brother may need a refresh on what the definition of failure is. 

As they flew into the main hangar, he noticed the entry barrier had been shut in its lockdown position. And the First Ones’ ship was still docked. Worst, the ship was trying to fly but was stuck in the platform restraints. Security was probably forcing the locks closed. The sab ship changed course at his command, flying over the balcony at speed, raining down destruction on bots and infrastructure. The left lock gave in and the First Ones’ ship moved sideways a few meters. He swiftly maneuvered back for a second pass and the ship complied, in her immediate and abrupt way of handling.   
Queen Glimmer was still willing to help Entrapta. With their future so uncertain and dire, that was something he could not afford to discount. Should he fail Entrapta again, should Prime got him, she would still have a place to run to – but for that, the Rebellion needed to survive.

Turrets started fire against the approaching sab ship, but went quickly quiet, as Hordak fired back and unleashed a set of interference signals over the hangar network frequencies.   
“Entrapta, your pad, you can communicate with the Princesses if I enhance your signal?”  
“Sure, Bow has his tablet with him. But encryption will need some time”  
“No need for that, just tell them to instruct their ship AI to tail us as close as possible when they break free. That’s all, not a word on our destination”

He was ready to fire at the locks again, when he spotted Catra. His previous pass had given her an opening and she was running back towards the ship. Adora, in precarious balance over one of the ship wings, had her arms stretched out to catch her and pull her on board. It was a jump well within Catra’s capabilities, but as she was leaping, a barrage hit her shoulder, trusting her off target. Adora’s hands couldn’t reach her. She plunged motionless in the void of the deep hangar. 

_Traitors shall die_ , Prime’s calm and regal tone declaimed in his head. 

_Prime can rot_ , Hordak’s own voice retorted. He plunged down the nose of the ship and fired the main thrusters to gain additional speed as he pursued down Catra’s falling form. He reached her, aligned the ship with her body and started to decelerate, as fast as he could without crushing her, barely enough to stop their fall before the hangar floor infrastructures. 

A daring and perfect maneuver, except, the end result was that at three minutes from the explosion, the hangar exit was closed, the other ship was stuck, and they were now still at the bottom of a pit with a bleeding cat splayed over the cockpit glass. 

Hordak cursed in a choice of languages his useless pathetic forgiving instinct. _You just cannot stay away from your defects…_ Before he could locate anything he could afford to shatter, Catra reanimated, felt herself slide and clung with her claws to whatever it was she was laying over.  
Hordak gradually but steadily raised the ship, quite amused by Catra’s shocked face the moment she regained her senses enough to recognize him inside the cockpit, still making sure his maneuvers were smooth enough to allow her to keep her hold. Counting the seconds it took to be back at the balcony level. Hoping Catra was using them to eat her own “I don’t need you!” in her mind.

At least Adora was someone whose righteous shock one could always relay on. As earlier, she was motionless on the spot, mourning over her latest failure to save everyone with her bare hands. How his and Shadow Weaver’s training had produced her, was something he would never wrap his head around.  
However, her frozen position on the ship wing was perfect to deliver her kitten practically in her arms, just by swiftly tilting his ship.   
Now that he was done wasting time looking after his traitorous former underlings, he disposed of the remaining lock with a disproportioned amount of firing power. He needed to blow up stuff, to restore his evil pride a bit.

One-and-a-half-minute and just a task left, open the hangar. He scanned the external wall with the ship sensors while the First Ones’ ship aligned with their tail, as per his orders. King Micah must had just lost quite a heated argument.  
He pushed forward, firing a concentrated thermal beam at a tiny point in the external wall.  
“Is that a...” started Entrapta.  
“Flare detector that will trigger an emergency three seconds long opening of the barrier to relieve pressure” confirmed Hordak. “Supposedly” he had to add, when it didn’t trigger. He had to change course and try again, wasting seconds to allow the less capable ship trailing them to complete the turn.  
“Redundancy?” proposed Entrapta, before the hiccup could switch her lab partner to his smash-everything mode.  
Yes, that could be. With the first beam on the previous point, he fired a missile close to a second sensor his scan had listed. With two temperature readings off, the hangar system finally believed a flare was happening. The barrier raised, briefly enough for the ships to get through, the black vastness of the universe welcoming them out with its infinite number of stars.

Time enough for a breath of marvel and hope – there had to be a place in all that expanse for them to be out of his brother’s reach - and a smile at Entrapta’s comment “Imp! Look at that, isn’t the most amazing view ever?” then he needed to force himself back to the battle.

Thirty-five seconds left, approximately. He destroyed a line of security drones posted around the mothership and chased away the few pursuing fighters close enough to be a problem, blasting them with interference signals that caused their navigation system to glitch, then set the ship to full stealth mode. Shapely screens raised to obscure the thrusters, the tanks and the general ship outline. Jamming systems kicked in deviating waves, creating a bubble of distortions big enough to shield them and the First Ones’ ship from both radar detection and targeting by missiles.

He set into a large loop around the conic section of the mothership and waited. 

Then the blast silently happened. As the first debris reached their position, Hordak aligned the ship with the ones hurled in the general direction of the planet, mimicking their speed. Behind them, the fleet formation was busy repositioning to avoid contact with the mothership, still rocked by secondary explosions.   
They weren’t pursued. Etheria grew in front of them. Entrapta had a rough model of the First Ones’ ship general shape and size, enough for Hordak to derive a general idea of what the ship could handle during descend and reentry. Far in front of them, one of the fastest debris was already burning in the atmosphere. Hordak decided for a suboptimal angle and deployed the bare minimum deflectors. The debris would make reentry at very high temperatures, if they had to somewhat match their signatures, they would need more attrition than usual. The sab ship could take a lot and plunging in with the ship irregular belly bearing the blunt would make a good impression of a meteor. He kept checking the position of the First Ones’ ship. They were close enough for his ship to shield most of the heat from them, which was important if their AI was to feel “safe” enough to keep trailing them. He changed course toward the northern border of the Whispering Woods when a debris near them shattered, masquerading their own maneuver. 

Three minutes later, reentry was mostly over. Still no trace of pursuing ships.   
It was time to think at their own plans. 

“Entrapta, we… part ways with them now” he informed her, more like asked, wondering if she had regrets.   
“I calculated the exact coordinates of the part of Beast Island we need to reach” she simply replied in her confident, bright voice “A large abandoned cave with plenty of discarded First Ones’ tech!”  
“Are you sure” he didn’t want to talk about that, but it couldn’t be postponed further “my brother didn’t read about Beast Island, when he… tried to read you?”   
“I would know if he did?”  
“Yes. He reads from what he forces you to think at”  
He didn’t know if this was how it worked, or if his brother just enjoyed his victims to feel what he was doing.  
“Then I’m sure. I don’t like splitting my focus, I couldn’t care about him too” 

Both remembered who she was _entirely_ focused on, both blushed, both silently thanked the back of the seat for being between them, preventing each other from seeing their respective blushes. And then blushed again when Imp let out a sudden screech of knowing exasperation.

Hordak managed to get his thoughts back together. He fired a plasma blow at nothing from one side of the ship, mimicking debris breaking up, then abruptly decelerated enough for the First Ones’ ship to pass them. A sudden rotation and acceleration, and they were gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little side story with KOM98234 and a younger Hordak - Just some additional headcanon, not necessary to follow the main story.


	5. Nap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Them having a nap is the whole point of this.

“Trace lost” the AI voice informed “Completing reentry along current path in 37 seconds. Enter new target or stand by for touch down at 45:234 71:002”  
Whatever. Bow didn’t reply, exhausted and lost. He had hoped, seeing their ship help them… but of course, after their row on the mothership, Lord Hordak wouldn’t trust them. Entrapta was gone, again.   
And now they knew the full might of Prime’s Horde. What from the surface looked like bright crib toys hanging from the sky, up close were dozens and dozens of gigantic ships, heavily armed, each full of thousands of deadly clone soldiers. She-ra powers were gone and now the only person who had a clue about the Heart of Etheria, spaceships, portals, had left too, lost to their infighting. Just like the first Alliance had failed. Queen Angella had a point. They didn’t listen, they rushed to escalate the war, certain to win. 

And now, well, the war _had_ escalated. 

It was too much, and they were so little. Their planet itself was so diminutive from space. They were small things living in insignificant reigns, not even visible from up there. His pitiful arrows would make zero difference in the enormity of this war.   
But staying together, it still had to mean something.

Adora was cradling a badly hurt Catra, whatever anger she still held lost to worry. King Micah could help, but he knew Catra’s role in the portal where Angella was lost.   
“Dad” interceded Glimmer, her voice struggling “please help her, she has helped me!”   
She needed him to forgive Catra. If he could forgive Catra, maybe, maybe one day, he could forgive her too.  
“Dad, Prime… talked to me. He hasn’t come for Hordak. It was… me! The energy from the Hearth of Etheria had him come here! I am the one to blame, I’m… the worst possible Queen Bright Moon could have had”   
Bow just hugged her, like when they were kids and would play war and would always manage to triumph over the Horde before dinner was ready. “Not leaving you alone ever again”  
Micah expression softened. He kissed Glimmer’s hair. “I failed myself at ruling, that’s how I ended up stranded away from you. But we’ll try again together”.   
He quietly lent one hand to Catra, letting his healing spells flow. They all made mistakes, they all needed another chance.

\---

The entry to the cave was concealed under a thick canopy of convoluted giant trees. Hordak slowed down to maneuver. Inside, the cave was wider, the inner area had a flat surface, not natural, built, many structures still standing. Dark and full of scraps of tech, it was close enough to their concept of home. Entrapta was relieved the ship screens were good enough to completely filter out the whispering voices. She had managed to handle them – almost - but it wasn’t something she wanted Hordak to have to bear right now. Stranded again on the mudball with nothing but a ship. She wasn’t sure how he could feel, he was just putting up his stoic face - they both were - but he’s been through much. 

Hordak completed landing, then set up shields and sensors so the ship would alert them in case… he barely managed to force himself to finish the procedure. As the adrenaline was ebbing away, everything he had dismissed during the fight was back in his mind, his own memories still chaotically merging with those of his reconditioned self. Guilt, humiliation, remorse, anger, pain… His hands started to shake the moment they left the controls. His brother’s blood tainting his armor. He knew Prime well enough. His wrath would soon unleash the whole Horde against him. Against Entrapta. The things he would do to them… as worry and exhaustion took over, he struggled to cope with the enormity of what had happened, of what could happen next.

A whirlwind of pink and purple filled his field of view, replacing the void he was staring at.   
A sudden impact against his chest.   
Entrapta had just landed on his lap. Curled up against him, one arm halfway around his waist, the other on his chest, her head rested just below the collar. 

Thoughts left his head faster than a reconditioning. Leaving behind an outer-space-like void, with quite a number of exploding supernovas in it.  
He didn’t know what to say before and talking was anyway beyond him now. Moving, also. Breathing, not available at the moment.

Slowly, soft warmth seeped through the white fabric.   
He wasn’t on Prime mothership anymore.   
He wouldn’t be reading his mind.   
Even if he would, his judgements would mean nothing to him now.   
He was free to let his thoughts be. 

He still didn’t know what to say, but at least, he had briefly daydreamed of something like that, while Entrapta was sitting on the armrest of his throne, before catching his thoughts - the irony, of owning a throne while still chained even inside his mind – so he had maybe the beginning of plan. 

Cautiously, he reached for the clasp of her mask, still wedged between them.   
As soon as it loosened and fell, Entrapta’s face nuzzled against his chest, both sobbing and smiling. Like… he’s been missed. Like he was…   
He didn’t need a plan anymore. He just folded himself around her. His arm was long enough to envelope most of her small form, from her neck to her knees. His other arm wrapped around her shoulder, his hand on her head, holding her close. Soft strands embraced back his fingers, his claws. Circled his waist and his shoulders, curled around his arms.   
Entrapta was alive. She wasn’t leaving him.   
He tilted his head until his cheek rested on one of her pigtails, and closed his eyes against the warmth. 

Entrapta let her tears quietly flow and disappear on the white fabric, resting into the soothing weight of his arms, of his pale scent, something alike O-ring rubber. But he was also warm, unlike Emily, and he breathed, with his big lungs. Deep sparse breaths, noticeable enough she had been keeping statistics on them while they worked. Three per minute, generally.   
Nothing at all, if he was startled - that’s how she knew his initial lack of reaction didn’t necessarily mean he was against being hugged.   
Anything more frequent, was him trying to cope. With pain, with anger, with… she wasn’t sure what his current ten breaths a minute was, but she hoped there could be some happiness mixed in.   
Unlike Emily, he had a mind of his own, she hadn’t programmed him to be affectionate. To keep her so close, like… she’s been missed. Like, maybe, being her lab partner could be enough? His rib cage raised again under her cheek. She unconsciously kept counting the seconds, his slowing rhythm quietly lulling her into sleep.

\---

KOM98234 woke to a thick headache. His neck was like on fire. Stunning rods do hurt, claw cuts hurt and bleed, being thrown down some stairs doesn’t help either. But he couldn’t afford time to pity himself. He reached the utility ships hangar. Unsurprisingly, the terminal screen just showed error messages, VHNT4358 had probably messed with the logs. He was certainly good at that. 

But KOM98234 was good at understanding organics, logs or not, he already knew what kind of ship his former general was aiming for. Since VHNT4358 wasn’t alone – the pink alien’s corpse was nowhere to be seen, they were likely alive and onboard – his best bet was the two-seats version of the latest iteration of saboteur ships, VHNT4358’s own creations. The other generals had never appreciated them much – why infiltrate something you can flatten, why use a ship that takes a year to manufacture from precious materials, to save on infantry that takes six months to grow out of whatever organic surplus was available – but they were effective. Unfortunately, also almost undetectable, so, having failed to get his former general at the hangar entry was quite a large problem. 

Alarms were still beeping and there was some heavy trembling in the structures, the sound of strained metal echoing like a warning of the things to come.   
He couldn’t risk being located on the mothership. It could take a while for Prime to recover and find out about his failure at the barrier, but he had no doubt that moment would arrive. 

Prime was meticulous when it comes to revenge and punishments. 

Two clones were unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. Their badges will do. He needed to buy himself time enough to discover were VHNT4358 had gone hiding. He knew him better than anyone else, if anyone could track him down... a realization came to him.   
VHNT4358 himself, had once given him what was needed to track stuff apparently impossible to find. 

\---

Catra briefly woke, abruptly, to escape a nightmare. Adora was there. Asleep, curled up at her feet. Maybe, there won’t be nightmares anymore.

\---

Entrapta shivered, feeling Hordak’s soft pointed ear, nestled in her hair, twitch at a muffled noise. She didn’t open her eyes, not wanting to know. Please don’t let it be Prime. Not yet. 

Then a quiet screech, not of the warning kind. She eased. That was the sound of Imp paycheck time. Hordak let his arm down, with some caution, but no bite followed. Imp climbed on the seat and installed himself on Hordak’s shoulder, his yellow eyes looking him up inquisitively. Waiting for an appropriate apology to be delivered and for his chin to be scratched in compensation. 

Actually, Imp had patiently waited in a corner for the two of them to properly smooch, they were clearly overdue, but two hours in, he had given up. Since Entrapta wasn’t going to do with Hordak nothing more than what Imp usually did – namely, using him as preheated nest – she could at least share.

A contained growl escaped from Hordak, the minimum amount of sound needed to convey his displeasure at being stared.   
No matter how good his low growl had sounded to Entrapta, from her vantage point directly above his lungs, Imp wasn’t going to accept it as apology. His master had a full set of vocal cords and he was better using them for something more thoughtful, if he didn’t want another bite soon. 

Entrapta, eyes only half open to not get caught awake and spying, saw their two pairs of shining eyes face each other in the dark for several seconds. “I’m sorry” Hordak finally surrendered in a whisper. Then his voice got way softer “I am so sorry, Imp… I’ve been careless and foolish, and I don’t know how I can fix, how I can keep you two safe, from him…”   
That was acceptable. Imp let Hordak pet him for a while, then jumped on his chest to find a suitable cuddling area.  
“Imp…” he added in a whisper “Don’t you ever play this back”  
Entrapta could not stop a chuckle, which earned her a second, dismayed growl. She liked it as much as the first one. As much as she liked how soft his voice could get. She knew that tone, he happened to use it without realizing, about stars and galaxies. And welding techniques.   
She had thought it cute. But now, she’s seen Prime and had her share of hardship to compare. He has had decades of hardship. It wasn’t cute, it was more like a miracle, that tone had survived at all. 

Since Entrapta was already awake, Hordak reached out to a lever on the side of the seat. Entrapta was small but still weighted enough for his legs to be almost numb at this point. Also, after his full capitulation to Imp, reclining the seat couldn’t add much more embarrassment.   
He shelved a shiver. The last time he had used that lever has been to try, in vain, to lay a moment and recover from the pain enough to get through that military council... he still had nightmares about being cast away. But not tonight.   
Entrapta moved over him, resettling into his arms. As soon as he managed to breathe again, his cheek went back against the safe softness of her hair. For once, he could just let go, and rest, and feel cared and wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a chapter to the side stories of Hordak's years in the Horde, which adds some info on KOM98234's past (not necessary to the main story)


	6. Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past angst, present fluff.  
> They get some time to settle while things brew on the mothership.  
> Imp schemes.

Hordak woke up, but he didn’t move yet, waiting for his body to inform him of the amount of pain in store for today. He expected the worst after all the hits he had taken. The burns from the electric jolts of the rods were very much present and his whole right side was probably a giant ecchymosis by now, but his bones weren’t aching much more than the usual. He half smiled. Her warmth, probably, after the painfully cold nights in the mothership, had helped him recover. His upper body was still carefully wrapped in pink hair. He slowly moved just enough to get a glimpse of her face. Deeply asleep over him, with the serene hint of a smile. Peacefully cuddled against what was basically a stray glitching battle droid of an enemy empire. An Emily made of flesh, who had failed her in every possible way. He’s never been so unworthy of trust and yet, never felt trusted so much. 

He closed his eyes again, trying to feel only her soft strands around his fingers, her breath on his neck.  
But he already knew it would be just for a moment, just until she would wake up too.  
Then, he’ll fight. Even if it was likely he was going to die.  
He’s been there before.  
He’s been there his whole life. He’s been dying since the moment he left the tank he was grown in. His defects had never stopped demolishing his body. 

He’s been a young reconditioned clone, punished for errors he couldn’t even remember.  
A test pilot for unverified prototypes, never knowing if he would survive the next flight. 

A general trying to manage an immense empire and obviously failing at it. Facing the ire of his brother at each misstep, taking each day more risks than the previous. Bearing the guilt of every defeat as his own inability to properly execute the grand, faultless vision of his loved brother.

Garbage sent to die, piled with the cargo on the back of an infantry transport, as no clone would let him sit close by, out of fear his illness could be contagious.  
Fodder under enemy fire, a target with no armor, no uniform, nothing to help his brothers, falling and bleeding away one after the other. Many from the lowest grade of infantry batches, their chemically rushed development leaving their brains so stunted they won’t even manage to learn to speak before they would die. Not even to conquer an inch. Just a diversion for some other attack elsewhere. 

A lone alien on unknow land, stripped of everything. Looking up at the sky to seek for anything familiar to cling to. To find he had not even starlight left.

The caricature of a warlord despised by two generations of natives of a caricature of a planet. 

He’s been hopeless, so many times before. He had always fought.  
He wasn’t certainly going to stop fighting now.

\---

Entrapta was as quick to wake up as she was to fall asleep.  
She would work until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. As soon as she was awake again, new ideas, often the most daring of the day, would pop up in her head and she would immediately report them to her recorder. Which wasn’t in her hand nor at her side because?  
She smiled. A smile that grew and lighten up as she tilted her head to check on her lab partner.  
His red eyes were open, looking back at her, so close she could distinguish the miniscule tightly packed bright dots composing their flat surface.  
She was to start a flurry of questions about them. Were they natural? How could they filter out their own light? Why had Prime a moving pupil? Was Prime the one modified or did he replace the eyes of every clone?  
But a sudden flush on her cheeks derailed her questioning. A tendril failed to find the mask on her head, and she remembered Hordak unclipping it to embrace her. Memory which helped her cool down as much as gasoline poured over and exploding bot.  
A sudden hot spot on her left shoulder informed her of the hand rested over the slit on her shoulder.  
If at visual observation his pale blue skin appeared to have a demi matte finish, it felt so smooth against her own skin that she couldn’t help but wonder, how would it look and feel when wet?  
A legit question generally useful to characterize a surface which led her thoughts to drift into possible methods to observe said skin wet. Among them, her brain pointed out one which would add taste to the obtainable information, furthering the chemical analysis of the sample.  
Her cheeks almost self-ignited.

Hordak’s brain wasn’t faring any better at handling the situation. He’s been lost in a loop of blushing in response to her blushing since her eyes had landed on him and his ears were twitching like they were trying to fly him away. He tried to lift the hand he couldn’t remember having moved to her shoulder - but could very well remember not having removed from there - before it could melt in place. 

No luck. Entrapta’s strands were still intertwined with his fingers and he ended up pulling awkwardly at her hair while his claws grazed her skin. Thinking she was making him uncomfortable, she tried to unwind all of her hair from him. But she had wrapped him tightly and the strands around his waist and upper back were stuck under his weight. Her head raised just a little, only to bounce back on his chest as she failed to disentangle.

Hordak was conflicted between untangling from the utterly embarrassing situation as fast as possible and doing his best to stay stuck to Entrapta till the end of time. He ended up failing miserably at both.

From the dark recess of the ship he had identified as the best spot to spy upon them, Imp facepalmed, then facewinged, as the clumsy scene unfolded before him. He let out a screech of desperation.  
He didn’t even bother to muffle it. Let them know how inept they were.

Imp’s protest wasn’t enough to have them stop and think.  
They ended up separated, confused and looking away from each other. Entrapta down from the seat to stand aside, in the small space between the armrest and the controls, trying to get a hold of her now strangely rebellious hair, Hordak still seated but on just the farther half of the seat, ears downwards, eyes low, vaguely pointed at his legs. 

They slowly focused.

Tights.

A surge of rage stabilized his emotions. Familiar rage, the giant flashing warning he had ignored all his life. 

The snow-white uniform with its revolting dark gray tights.  
He had hated them since the second he’s been promoted official. Laboriously put them on the first morning, by lunch he was back in his dark pilot uniform and boots. He had conceded everything to his brother, but this had been his one little victory. No tights, unless there was a formal meeting to be attended.  
Prime had shouted, took offence. Shoved him against walls until the walls had tired of him impacting on them. But in the end, his brother had an empire to run and thousands and thousands of clones to discipline. Hours in a day are a finite number even for a being that doesn’t ever sleep. He couldn’t spend them all punishing his teen brother over fashion. 

Hordak fumed over how much fun it must have been for Prime now, to have him all subdued and dressed like a little nice subservient pet. To take from him even this little thing.  
He growled. 

Entrapta turned back to him, worried by his sour face and bared fangs. There was no one else around, so… was he so upset with her? Had she overstepped a pair – of dozens – of personal space boundaries? Even worse, did he really want to leave his brothers, his new lab, or she had somehow forced his hand and he was having second thoughts now?

“Hordak?” she tried, as his rage mounted until he started to tear the tights apart with his claws.  
“BE HE DAMNED!” he cursed, ripping away the fabric “TOSSING ME AROUND LIKE A RAG, PLAYING DRESS UP WITH ME LIKE I’M HIS DOLL!”  
He stood up to shred the upper parts of the tights under the tunic, to Entrapta’s cheeks relief, turned away from her.  
Seeing the garment finally in pieces under his armor boots soothed him enough to sit down again.

“And be he forever damned, for trying to harm you”

He was to add a promise to never let it happen again, but how could he keep such a vow. He would try, but he was in no position to deliver. Yet.  
A strand of hair landed on his shoulder.  
Make her happy. That much, he could.  
“We need to know what we have available to work on. We shall proceed to an inventory of the ship equipment”  
Pink tendrils shot immediately around toward the cargo slots, unlocking them with unbelievable dexterity and speed. 

\---

KOM98234 briefly acknowledged the younger clone, serial IMP29Q01, busy in the maintenance space.  
The two clones knew each other. IMP29Q01 had worked, sporadically, for KOM98234’s diplomatic department on covert communication channels and spying systems.  
The diplomat, far higher in rank, went right to the point.

“I remember VHNT4358 talking about how the interference field of the saboteur ships was based off the fluctuations of calibrating portals. Is it correct that the two phenomena have the same underlying equations?”

The young clone turned to the console he was working at, to hide his reaction at the conversation subject.  
VHNT4358. They had never worked for him simultaneously. IMP29Q01 has been one of his radar and communication experts during the closing months of the Bewen invasion, just before VHNT4358 was disposed of. At that time Prime had already appointed KOM98234 as lead ambassador and de facto governor in a satellite galaxy, effectively - and purposely - cutting the ties between the diplomat and Little Brother. 

Still, the two clones knew of each other’s work for the former general, though IMP29Q01 had never told KOM98234 about where he was stationed before that.  
He’s been avoiding thinking back at that even with himself.  
Until now. Some things cannot be forgotten, no matter how much one tried. 

IMP29Q01 was still silent. Why that very specific question? KOM98234 was a diplomat, not a technician. How did he even know? A query about saboteur ships, now, could only be for one purpose.

That’s why instead of answering, which was his duty, the clone was still trying to guess KOM98234’s intentions. Something was wrong. But he couldn’t possibly ignore forever an official of his rank, so he turned to face him.

KOM98234 was wearing the simpler everyday version of the white uniform, not the more decorated attire he had for official occasions. Still, he had the white and silver enameled belt that usually went with his more formal gear and his saber was dangling from it.  
It wasn’t a merely ornamental weapon, beside the sharpness, the blade was composed of layers of highly conductive alloy and insulated circuitry and could produce short, but potentially deadly, bursts of plasma along the cutting edge.  
IMP29Q01 had noticed the safety switch on the hilt was off.  
Like any clone, KOM98234 had a training on fighting, but he’s never been one to resort willingly to force. 

The sabotage of the mothership has been a shock, but it was over and there was no reason to think a new attack was imminent.  
Then why was he so much on the edge as to keep his weapon ready to fire at any moment? He had a capable escort assigned to him, why weren’t they with him if he felt in danger? 

KOM98234 was wearing a higher that usual collar and IMP29Q01 spotted three reddish, line-shaped stains, barely visible under the outer layer of fabric.  
Was he trying to cover a bandage? Claws cuts, fresh ones, still bleeding.  
Just two of the attackers had claws, from the few surveillance videos he had managed to gather, the humanoid-feline and VHNT4358 himself.  
Had KOM98234 and his former general seen each other? Did they fight?

KOM98234 analyzed him back. The younger clone wasn’t answering and seemed hesitant. His enquiry has been too revealing of his intentions, or he was too bruised and panicked to behave normally, either way, his plan to obtain more information while appearing to be on an official, legit quest wasn’t working. 

He would need to abandon caution and play openly.

At least, he’s been wise enough to wait for the clone to be alone in one of the radars service rooms, before approaching him. He was unarmed and could be easily trapped and subdued.  
KOM98234 still had the search hardware his former general had installed on his older ship and he still remembered the passcodes needed. 

Of course, he did, his life had once depended on it. 

But without someone expert, he had no clue how to properly set it up for his new target.  
His whole plan was dead if he couldn’t get the clone full collaboration.  
By any necessary means.

He made sure IMP29Q01 could see him loosening the sheath and putting his hand around the saber hilt.

“Silence? Sometimes it says more than an answer. From my information - I always get information before employing someone - you were very loyal to VHNT4358. Suspiciously so, rumors said. Oh, I love suspicions. The juiciest part of my job is to get to the bottom of them, and so I did. Quite easily”  
He let him a moment so the fact he _knew_ could sink in. Let him feel cornered. 

Then some nicety. Show him a way out. See if he would take it.  
“Your records tell you’ve become an expert on wave detection and scrambling. Enough so, you went from promotion to promotion, until you received the honor to serve on the mothership. Our youngest, brightest detection genius. So of course, you know every bit there is to know about our best stealth ships. About _his_ favorite ships. And certainly, you have the answer to my question. Every detail of it”  
KOM98234 circled him.  
“You’re smart enough to have guessed what I need that answer for. You also know what happens when a clone withholds information to a superior, don’t you?”

Show him clearly the stakes.  
“Crucial information that will allow to apprehend a traitor, no less. Could you imagine Prime’s reaction to someone hiding that? Maybe not, to be honest, no one can fully envision the dept of his fury. It has to be _experienced_ I suppose”  
He drew himself closer, carefully picking a spot slightly behind the now openly scared clone. 

Force him to choose.  
“So, radar technician, explain me your silence. Tell me, if it could possibly be…”  
He drew his saber and pushed its edge against the clone’s neck and cheek.  
“Would you lie, for _him_?”  
The clone tensed, still silent, but he didn’t rebel. It wasn’t in his training to. His expression grew uncertain and resigned as fear crippled his already trembling resolve. 

KOM98234 had him exactly where he needed him. He slowly increased the pressure on the blade until the first droplets of blood stained the shining metal.  
“Would you die, for _him_?”

\---

Entrapta dangled from her hair under a wing to observe its geometry. The exterior of the ship was fascinating. How so many moving parts could be so precise, yet so sturdy, to resist the extreme temperatures, the drag, the forces of a reentry, time and time again.  
The pitch-black finish was not a paint, but a nanostructure that could be regrown with vapor deposition when need arose. Hordak had just showed her the portable version of the equipment for shield maintenance, a wonder which could work reliably in a variety of different planetary atmospheres.

Producing something akin to that wonderful ship required an incredible number of skills.

No wonder Hordak had heavily industrialized the Fright Zone. The first step to widen the range of materials available to him to serve as the basis for a second generation of better equipment, and so on. Now she was able to see what he was working towards, also, could better understand his frustration with Etheria. He knew of so many more technologies and processes but achieving them on their planet would require years of work.  
It has been her frustration too, seeing the beautiful tech of the first ones, being able to imagine new versions, but being prevented from implement them for lack of tools to produce new crystals, even to make repairs to the ones available to her.

On just Etheria, their combined lifetimes wouldn’t suffice to create a small fraction of what was aboard that single ship. She was almost dazed by the new discoveries, the new possibilities in front of them.

Not just by that maybe.  
The ship had a stock of supplies meant for long missions, among them uniforms. They both couldn’t stand the white livery, a continuous reminder of their hard time on the mothership, so she had left Hordak alone for a few minutes while he got changed.  
Also. The white version with its front slits was, uh, _really_ meant to have tights underneath. Not to leave those long stretches of smooth, naked blue skin completely exposed from knee to hip each time he sat down. Her mask has been down plenty of time.

Imp called her in Hordak’s voice and her hair brought her back in in a second.  
She was to pull down her mask again, but she refrained.  
No matter how he was dressed, her lab partner was beautiful.  
She could either live with her mask down or let him see her expression and see where the experiment could lead. Maybe it was for the better. Even now, sat on the floor of the majestic spaceship he had designed, he was looking down elsewhere, startled by her reappearance while he still had his armor off. He was beautiful, but he hadn’t a clue he was.

He was now wearing a side slits uniform, very similar to his usual attire, but sand color. She remembered him talking about several sandy planets, they were probably widespread in the universe so it made sense for stealth mission to have uniforms which could blend in. The warm color contrasted nicely with his blues, making them look more vibrant. He had begun to reassemble his armor on his own, out of his habit to hide away. Without the machine in the sanctum, it’ll take time, and Imp had thought better to teach him he didn’t need to do it all alone anymore.  
The white fabric was in pieces on the floor, covered with black and red stains. He had found some markers in the ship supplies and used their dyes to redraw the thick black border around his eyes, and to paint red the white flying bat on the sand uniform. His hair was now a mix of the two pigments.

“There was no blue…” he stammered, like a child caught playing with make-up instead of doing homework.  
“Purple hair!” she beamed, several sets of hands forming in her hair just for clapping “It suits you!”  
Also blushing suited him, she thought. She resisted the idea to just cradle that embarrassed face up and… She also forgot to ask, before shooting tendrils all around him to check on his ports and place the armor pieces, but he didn’t protest. He so damned liked being cared. 

They went back to make plans. The first priority was to build some defenses. Just enough to have the time to lift off in case they were found. It was done by early afternoon. The ship could emit signals and Entrapta had amplified her whistle to call on the robot she had left on the island. To her delight, the big good girl was alive and well, just in need of some maintenance. Temporary bodies for the bots she had on the mothership were made from the scraps of the metal structures on the cave and some spare weapons stocked in the ship. Not optimal but still useful. Between that and the vines, attackers will land into some trouble.

Now they needed a long-term plan, but how to beat an Empire with almost limitless resources?  
Running away wasn’t an option. Their ship was wonderful but could only do interplanetary travel, at most short interstellar trips. There was nothing close enough they could reach. To escape they would need one of the bigger auxiliary ships, equipped with portal capabilities, enough fuel to power it, enough crew to govern it. 

Hordak also knew, even if they could jump elsewhere, Prime would hunt them relentlessly. And he won’t be the only one. Hordak’s race had waged war everywhere they had gone. It wasn’t like the former second in command of that empire could just land somewhere and be welcome. 

This left them with just the mudball. Still, Prime’s attention to The Hearth of Etheria said a lot about how much the weapon power could shift balances. If they could get to control it before Prime could, they may stand a chance.

So, with the smaller bots ready, they set off for the inner parts of the cave, to the First Ones installations.  
They soon found themselves out of the shielding provided by their ship. Hordak sensible ears picked the voices immediately. He tried not to listen, but he began to stumble, his eyes yellowing. Black vines just behind him. They had their voice. His own and his brother’s. Both listing his errors. Both agreeing on the only possible solution.  
_You should have perished on that battlefield long ago_  
He felt the vines curling around his fists… and his eyes brightened up red again. Even in this moment, something inside of him wanted to study the phenomenon. His curiosity, his marvel at all the things in the universe. Like the one marvel that was running back to him now. He wasn’t going to leave her.  
“You hear them? Don’t listen!”  
“I won’t. I’m done listening to fatuous nonsense. But I wonder, how they work”  
Like feeling they were now at the receiving end of the examination, the vines receded and withered away.  
“Little cowards. They feel somewhat familiar. Maybe my brother learned some of his mind tricks from the First Ones”  
“Is he that old?”  
“Possibly. He’s very reserved about that. But it’s been him, always, since the beginning. The empire started when he could first clone himself. Build an army and defy death. More than a millennium ago, likely two, but the portals we use to travel in space are more recent. Two hundred years, approximately. The empire was small, before, unable to extend further than the closest planetary systems”  
“I’ve made carbon-14 dating on every organic inclusion on the crystal’s fragments I collected. The Heart of Etheria can generate a portal so they had the capability since at least three millennia ago”  
“And used them to travel the universe, of course. Maybe they found Prime, or they passed their knowledge to some race that later came across him. Exploration is risky. You never know what you may end up awakening”  
Entrapta went uncharacteristically silent for a while, her mask down.  
“Maybe the voices can sense people’s mistakes”  
“That would explain why I hear them, but you don’t”  
“I do. And I am sorry”  
“What for?”  
“I always experimented alone, when things went wrong, at most I could harm myself or my bots, which I could repair. You told me what your brother did to you and… I just went on with the portal. I wanted to see it working, to see the stars so much. I didn’t think at the risks. To you”  
“Entrapta, I wanted to go on, ordered you to. This outcome is my mess”  
“Oh, but I’m not one of your force captains, you could not order me. I decided to go on. I let him get you. I’m not used to think at the past much. There is no way to test a different past and it is not science, if it cannot be tested. But I analyze the results of past experiments. Our experiments. Our mess”

That was… new.  
But Entrapta had a point. He could not order her a thing. If she was determined to carry some of his burden, no force in the known universe would stop her.  
Certainly not a broken clone.  
“Mess partners, then?”  
“Mess partners!” she confirmed, pushing up her mask. A pink strand shook his hand in agreement.

It took a while to fix the damage caused on the main terminal by the vines, no essential part of the system had been crippled, but the error messages were not straightforward. Entrapta had learned a lot in her long previous stay on the island, but it took time to translate from the old language.  
“Should we kidnap Adora to speed up work?”  
Hordak growled. Having to bear both the vines and Adora’s voices would be too much.  
“She wouldn’t understand these codes if they’d be explained with pictures. But maybe we could throw her at the vines to distract them for a while”  
“I can confirm the vines would attack her. They did when she was here. Which was interesting. I supposed the vines were guarding the place and will recognize a first one, or her She-ra form at least, just like Light Hope. Well, terminal online!”  
Hordak stared at the screen in dismay. He couldn’t read first ones at all. The voices begin to address him with every know synonym of useless.  
He’ll prove them every synonym of wrong.  
“Tell me about the terminal interfaces. I have repeaters on the ship, if we can connect it to one of them, we can work from there. The ship has tools to translate alien languages and locate patterns of interesting data, for spying purposes. If we train the AI properly with your dictionaries, we may get automated translations”  
The plan won him a blinding smile. 

It also worked.  
A few hours later, they were back to the ship and the AI was churning data from the terminal. They’ll have a basic translator set-up in the evening and full results in the morning. They also rigged the terminal. With a copy of everything on their ship, should they be found and need to escape, they could afford to damage the first ones’ database, knowing they could set up shop elsewhere. 

Hordak ears reoriented at a new noise, to point the entry of the cave. Rain.  
“The water tanks on the ship are dimensioned to serve my race needs. You’ll need more. What did you drink while here?”  
“I followed some mostly organic beasts to some potable springs, on the farther part of the island from the signal”  
“We’d better collect some rain than wander that far from the ship” 

The sky was completely dark, it was getting late and there was no lighting. Possibly the cloud energy was being absorbed away by the corrupted tech rocks. Their glow was stronger, shedding light on the falling rain and the lower clouds. Even the closest trees had luminous streaks, a violet veneer appearing were their surface had been scratched.  
While Hordak cleaned and welded together some metal sheets outside, to gather water, Entrapta sat at the cave entry, admiring the landscape below them. The kind of admiration that involved gathering data sets with a portable scanner from the ship.  
“There still so much tech active here!”  
“Too much” pondered Hordak “for a dumping area”  
“And there is a pattern to the glow. Like roots from this cave, coordinated pulses. Collecting energy”  
“On the mothership lab, we had come to the conclusion there must be a control center somewhere, which holds the configuration for the weapon. We may be walking on it”  
“So all that waste is just a cover-up and the terminal does more than status information”  
“It could explain why the vines attacked She-ra. No matter what the mudball legends say, you have demonstrated She-ra is just a weapon component. Cogs don’t decide what a machine does. Light Hope purpose was to cast her to shape. While this place, this was reserved for the ones in power”  
There was some irony. Adora deserted the Horde to stop being used as soldier, only to end up being used as trigger. Bright. Maybe her good scores in training were due to Catra at her side saving her from her stupidity. 

With the rainwater collection system in place, Hordak sat next to Entrapta to see her new data. Imp, who had quietly creeped in the shadows behind them, frowned. To see _data_ , sure. Was Emily around, they would bet on how much time _data_ would force them to sit close by. Or how much slant toward each other their bodies will have at the end. 

Entrapta too had new data to ponder over. Her lab partner had stayed outside enough to be completely drenched. His ears twitched briefly to shake away the raindrops, but other than that he didn’t seem to mind the water on his skin. She did, in between tables and graph. While his opaque whites were unchanged, his blues had turned vibrant and bright, with an almost glassy sheen, like polished gemstones. The sand colored uniform collar was lower than his usual, leaving the dark blue curly patterns on his white neck visible.  
Vivid and glossy like cupcake icing just out from the fridge.  
Ok he wasn’t tiny. But she could make exceptions.

Just not right now. Hordak was asking if wave interference could be boosting the energy on the way back to the cave. In case he would lift his eyes from the tablet to look at her, she cut the gazing and loaded the next simulation. 

Imp hated them more with each chart. They were utterly inept at interactions but had truly mastered the art of avoiding them. How her tendrils would hover, seemingly on their own, around his flanks, but she would pull them back just in time. How they would perfectly time staring between the screen and the other’s neck, chest, eyes, even _bottom_ , to avoid getting caught.  
Don’t cross the streams, would quote Emily from somewhere in her databanks. 

Imp would beg to differ. If he had got right what they were talking about earlier and what Emily had once revealed him, he could have a shot at fixing those two idiots before bedtime. 

\---

After a quick stop to eat a few rations and pet Imp, who purred happily at them with his fakest innocent face ever, they went back to the ship terminals.  
The basic translation system relied on the human readable form of the first ones’ language, the glyphs from Entrapta’s research. The AI was still working on the full translator, so they had moved the basic one on the portable scanner. Placing the tablet under it would have the scanner read aloud the recognizable glyphs on the screen. It worked well enough and they spent the evening refining the models from the mothership lab with the new info. 

At maximum power, the Heart of Etheria would destroy the planet.  
But if they could dial down the power, maybe they could get a shot strong enough to wipe Prime’s fleet, but not enough to rip the planet. Though such a feat could still fracture the runestones, which was the first problem. A sword can be reforged, stones hardly. They won’t get a second shot. Should they misfire, with the mudball only worth in pieces, nothing would stop Prime from leveling the planet. 

The second problem was worst.  
The mothership, the auxiliary ships, were full of clones.  
What about them.

Hordak had fallen silent while their simulation showed the possible effect of the weapon beam on the fleet. He’d been unable to let even a few clones die in the lab explosion. He’ll never bring himself to pull a trigger which would kill most of his brothers. He didn’t know how he could justify himself to Entrapta. He had killed, to please Prime. And now he won’t, not even to save her life?  
But he didn’t need to utter a word. Entrapta had already terminated the simulation.  
“They look so much like you” she had simply said, a tendril curled around his arm.  
It was late in the night.  
The ship AI was still elaborating, and all their progress has led them to this dead end. 

He left Entrapta, now focused on a quick fix for one of the bots, and went in the back of the ship, were there was enough floor space available to arrange his armor. With his right side still aching from the hits taken during their escape, he would need to let his ports rest for a while. 

He also needed to think at his most immediate problem.  
How to… ask Entrapta to stay close to him during the night? 

Because it was either sleeping with his arms around Entrapta or staying awake until morning guarding her. He’d be useless (as in, more than the usual) tomorrow without any rest. But the thought, of closing his eyes and have no way to check on her. He knew what kind of images his brain would conjure. But he was at a loss for words. Again. She’s hugged him the night before, but they were just out from the mothership, after many weeks of separation, after a fight…  
Now what, the defect had nightmares?

Imp was close by, helpfully bringing away the armor pieces. Seemingly.  
Like there was a need to pretend. Imp could be weaving baskets on his head with the island vines and it won’t even register in Hordak’s mind. Imp had seen Scorpia staring at Catra. But how he was looking now at Entrapta, that was an order of magnitude higher on the lost scale.  
Lost and silent, and since Imp could only record audio, he would have nothing to prove it ever happened to Emily.  
But Imp knew how to wait.  
Until Hordak was done removing his armor and booths.  
Until at last he disconnected the collar and laid it on the floor.  
Until he turned his eyes back to her.

Complete silence.  
Then, the artificial voice of the translator.

“LOVED”

Entrapta’s mask went down at relativistic speed.

Hordak briefly resumed higher brain functions and turned his ears and then his head to where the scanner was, confused.  
Imp was perched there, waiting for him to understand. When he didn’t within three seconds, Imp raised the armor centerpiece from the surface, turned it toward him, waved it so he could see the pink crystal shine.  
Hordak froze and melt simultaneously.  
But Imp showed no mercy. His tiny hands placed the crystal back under the scanner.

“LOVED”

 _That_ registered. As much as it would having Bright Moon’s runestone hurled to his face.

His first thought, oddly, was how ever could Imp know.

The second, how he didn’t. He was sat behind Entrapta while she was crafting his new armor. He’d seen her chiseling the surface of the crystal. He’d seen the glyphs, caressed them. Run his claws against them in despair, the crystal too hard to scratch, just like the memory of her.  
Spent weeks asking himself if there’s ever been a shred of sincerity from her, while carrying the answer on his chest. You failed rotting idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

Then the meaning hit fully. Slowly, like a foreign concept, and painfully, like hope betrayed too many times. But not enough times. He’s never been one to give up. He was still failing mostly because he was still trying. 

Entrapta was staring at a running counter, sat on a cushion of her hair.  
71 seconds. Either this was his new record of startled, with an uptick of 33 secs over the hug thing, or he hadn’t liked the implication of more than friends.  
75 secs. They’ve been together for hours in a row. Since he woke up from reconditioning, they’ve never been apart for more than a few meters. Back in the Horde, he had stuff to attend to, it’s never been that long.  
78 secs. And she had talked to him since waking up, so much she was almost tired of speaking herself. He wasn’t a recorder. He’d probably run away to avoid being chatted to death, had he anywhere else to go.  
81 secs. He clearly didn’t want _more_ Entrapta. Nobody did, that was the theory so far, but theories are never proven beyond doubt. It takes just one diverging experiment to demonstrate them false. It was thrilling when it happened, it would mean she had an indication about where a better theory could be found. Not this time. 

Not until second 86, when he approached and knelt right at her side, sitting slowly on his legs.  
He had gathered himself enough to answer, but he felt nowhere near brave enough to do so with her looking at him. He had no mask to put on, so hers would need to do. He placed a hand on it and carefully pulled it halfway up, enough for her eyes to stay covered by the lower half. Then gradually, he lowered and tilted his head. 

It was very tentative and almost slow motion. Imp in his corner held his tail tight in his tiny hands, the pike end pressed against his mouth to prevent his muffled awwwws from scaring the idiot into a retreat. 

Entrapta trashed her old theory the second she felt soft skin against her mouth. Thin, not properly lips, but certainly very soft. And yielding, and warm, and so, so welcomed. 

His idea had been to leave immediately. So as not to bother her if he had gotten this wrong, if he was unwanted as it should have been, scars, fangs, claws… But. How it felt. He couldn’t possibly cut it short himself. He stayed where he had landed, taking in the warmth, the closeness, each fraction of a second lighting a little bit of hope more. Fear hit back instantly as he felt the pressure fade. But not completely. She was almost caressing him with her lips, until she found a better angle and kissed him back. She was kissing him back. 

Her tendrils let the mask fell on the floor and curled around his shoulders, pulling him closer. She reached for his cheek…but as soon as the first fingertip landed, he jerked like he’s been stabbed and moved back abruptly, pulling her fist away from him.  
Then he realized. Magenta eyes, not green, were looking at him. The hand he was blocking was gloveless and strong, but small. He relented the grip but kept the hand and kept looking at her. Until he felt safe enough to fold his eyes closed and press her hand on his cheek, leaning against her fingers.  
It felt infinitely different from Prime’s hand, almost healing.  
Her thumb traced the border of his white skin, opaque, thick but very soft, the deep thin folds in his face, almost black lines. Her other hand landed on his shoulder, following the dark curls.

Then suddenly, she jumped at his neck, embracing him so tightly it was barely short of crushing him, with a long loud laughter of joy and a smile hardly contained in her face. It felt like being hugged by an explosion. 

He did his best to reciprocate. His bare arms felt light around her, but she liked the closeness, and the pale smile finding its way on that usually shut face.  
He was here. He wasn’t going away anymore.  
And he’d better want even more Entrapta because she wasn’t done with him yet. 

It didn’t take much to get things going. His pointy ears were too tempting to ignore. He growled and buried his hands inside the base of her pigtails, and they untangled completely, flowing between his fingers like a waterfall of silk. While he threaded his claws along her strands, she finally executed her morning plan to taste his skin. The whites on his neck and shoulders were so soft and thick that she ended up biting him altogether, giving him a chance to put his fangs to good use too. Dresses started to fell off. Entrapta’s, because he actually had just a single thing on him, and a quite accessible one, especially by someone who could muster any number of additional limbs. A tendril had curled around his left thigh several kisses ago and has been creeping upward since.

When she was left with just her simple white and magenta underwear, he reached for the metal belt and unclasped it. The front and back of the uniform separated. He slid the front half out of his neck, and let the fabric pool on his lap, trying to keep his biology at bay at least for a little longer.  
Entrapta’s fingers lingered over a scar running along his sternum, right below where her crystal would be. Not from his illness, he had whites and curls on his upper chest - whose symmetric patterns she would soon polish with her tongue because the slightly acid taste his blue skin had was quite close to the taste of her favorite frizzy drinks - but that was different. An old burn forming recognizable lines. She could spell the letters. His native language.  
“VHNT4...”  
“358. My identifier” he explained, quietly “production batch and serial number”  
“It doesn’t sound handy to say”  
“They’d call me General. And Prime would call me ‘little brother’. I thought it was an honor, but it was just a lie. He never desired an error to be a brother to him”  
“I like Hordak better” she determined.  
“I like Lab Partner best” he managed to answer. 

Imp was beaming. Finally, he had on record something sappy enough for Emily. But he refrained from chirping in triumph, since they were already back kissing each other.  
Deeply. The growing amount of skin to skin contact and their eagerness for discovery weren’t exactly a recipe for slowly, rationally or silently. The last intelligible sound was an unbelievably soft “You sure?” from Hordak. Imp first hid his eyes in his hands, then turned away entirely, then… he wasn’t certainly going to _ever_ replay what was unfolding now. His mission accomplished, he flew to abandon ship screeching. 

\---

Prime woke and immediately there was only blinding rage. He steeled, collecting his hate and anger for later use. He wasn’t going to lower himself to react like an animal.  
He scanned his surroundings. Just droids around him. No one of his clones had spine enough to face him. His forced calm almost escaped him. 

No one, but him. 

He tensed his muscles until it pained.  
There were scars where he had hit, deep, completely healed but still, imperfections. He could swap body with one of the many flawless copies he had, but he’ll refrain. He’ll be like admitting he’s been hurt enough for that to be needed… and suddenly, he remembered. The force shield his little decaying brother had crafted for him was probably the only reason he hasn’t been injured more seriously.  
He had _needed_ him.  
He sharply exhaled to expel the disgusting thought and took a tablet, to see if they got him alive. 

He was his to kill. 

Etheria’s conquest could wait. Everything could wait. His little brother’s pain was the only thing he wanted to savor now.

As he scrolled through the status feed, his hands tensed under the forced stillness, cracking the screen.  
Lab destroyed, prisoners gone, mothership shell damaged, systems not yet stabilized.  
The abomination escaped. On a ship designed to be untraceable.  
How. It. Happened.  
There was an unopened notification.  
“@AuthSys: Confirm request to revoke Level 1 badge to serial VHNT4358?”

Prime destroyed everything around him. Bots, furniture, screens, lights.  
He didn’t stop until there was nothing left to crush to dust.  
He’ll do the same to him.  
Find him.  
And then, break him in every possible way. Relentlessly. Not reconditioning, not that mercy. No. He’ll suffer. Until every last shred of that will would be shattered, every dot of light in those red eyes extinguished.

\---

As soon as the latest waves of feelings faded, Hordak collapsed on his less bruised side, exhausted and overwhelmed. He never imagined there could be a sense of happiness so intense. That it could be possible to feel this wanted. 

But now, with his usual walls gone, with this completely new perspective, he suddenly found himself staring down at his own past like it was an abyss.

Alone.  
In his ship, in the depth of space, hours away from any help.  
Trying surgery on his own body in the only place where no one could see him.  
Passing out for the pain halfway through, not knowing if he’d ever have the strength to wake up again. To try again. 

Alone, in a war room full of clones. Many, he knew, part of his former inner circle, but silent, motionless. Alone. His illness winning. Unable to even understand anymore what Prime was yelling, while he was ripping the truth about his condition out of his mind, his claws tearing away the metal plates covering his arms…

Entrapta was calling him, cradling his face, worried by his sudden tears. He clung to her, called her name back. Like it could make her appear in that past, there to lift him from all that endless misery.  
Seeing himself the way Entrapta would see him.  
She’d never have allowed him to believe he deserved that.  
He clung to her and let her hold him together, until he could fell asleep. 

She put on a few clothes using her strands, not wanting to let go of him. Then found a spot against his chest, into the quiet reassurance of his slow breathing. 

\---

KOM98234 got an encrypted notification from one of his underground contacts. His older ship was surrounded by seven others, all floating at the edges of the fleet, awaiting his instructions.  
“Prime is awake” he reported, wondering how much time was left, before Prime would find out of his failure at the barrier and put his serial on the revenge list “You got him or not?”  
A few minutes more, then IMP29Q01 showed him the finished reconstruction. 

On a map, a dot was blinking over a small island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hordak's skin description is based on observations of a white and blue Haribo candy.  
> So you know what to think at next time you eat one.
> 
> I added a chapter to the side stories of Hordak's years in the Horde which tells IMP29Q01 backstory (not necessary to the main story)

**Author's Note:**

> Will update irregularly cause I'm so slow...


End file.
